


One Whole Day

by Donsular



Category: Mary Poppins (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post Mary Poppins 1964
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 40,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25649890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donsular/pseuds/Donsular
Summary: Jane is bored. That’s it. She just wants to go on adventure, but she’s got nobody to go with. So now she must entertain herself for one whole day. And even though Mary has taught her so much about how to behave, she still can’t help getting herself into some trouble.
Relationships: Jane Banks & Jack
Comments: 20
Kudos: 20





	1. What To Do?

“MUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuum!! Michael’s been sick!”

Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Gross. Jane couldn’t stand the sight or the smell or the anything of vomit. The stuff was vile and if she didn’t get out of the room, she was bound to meet the same fate as her brother. Which is why she was the first to arrive at her parent’s bedroom to give them the news. However, she did rather like the fact that they probably assumed she was looking out for her little brother. Sure. Let them believe that. She needed some fresh air.

Winifred and George were quick to see to Michael, and amidst the chaos, Jane took the opportunity to head out onto the balcony on the floor below. The cool, crisp night was just what she needed, and she savoured every moment as she took a deep breath. She didn’t exactly like being awoken in the middle of the night, but she had to admit, the sky was pretty. And it was nice to see the world so quiet and empty. That was something she hadn’t really been able to experience at all over the past few weeks.

Recently, her father had decided that Jane was getting too old to be sharing a bedroom with her brother, and that it was high time she got some privacy. The plan was to put her in the first guest room, which meant it was going to need to be refurbished, as it had become rather in need of a new carpet and wallpaper. This had prompted George to want to redo much of the house, and he was finally able to do so thanks to becoming a senior partner, after the whole Wooden-Leg-Named-Smith incident, and he’d been setting aside more money each month to put towards the task. He’d already planned the whole fiasco. On top of refurbishing each room, Jane would be going into the room with the balcony, Michael would eventually move into the second guest room while the attic would be used for storage, rather than the basement, which had a terrible habit of flooding.

All this meant that the house had been turned upside down, with each room having sheets covering furniture in preparation for painting, carpets had been lifted to reveal the wooden slats beneath, and half the house was packed into several boxes that were being moved all over the place to make room for the workers that had been hired. And yet despite the spring cleaning that all this work was prompting, her father still insisted on keeping the piano. Honestly, nobody was ever going to play it. It made no sense for them to keep the thing.

However, that hadn’t been the issue. With all the work going on, Jane and Michael had been encouraged to play outside all day everyday so they wouldn’t wind up bothering the workers. Of course, this was fine at first; there had been a heatwave and the Banks children didn’t exactly need to be told twice to go out when they were boiling alive indoors. However, after getting caught in a particularly bad summer storm, Michael had come down with some kind of bug and was spending most of his time in bed. So, Jane had two problems: she’d lost her playmate, and she had to deal with him vomiting every day. God, she wished he’d get better soon. He’d, for some reason, been getting sick at about 3am every single night for the past three days, as if his body was on a timer. It was honestly disgusting, and Jane was starting to consider sleeping somewhere else. The guest rooms were a tip, so maybe she’d be allowed to sleep downstairs on the couch?

The 11-year-old sighed as she heard her father rushing downstairs to fetch a mop while her mother set about getting fresh sheets. The smell would linger. It always did. And after each incident, it seemed to hang around even longer, as if the smell was gradually working its way into the mattress itself. The thought alone made her gag. Yeah, she was definitely going to sleep on the couch. Sneaking back into the nursery, Jane managed to grab her pillow and a blanket without being noticed, as her father was busy cleaning the mess and her mother was cleaning up Michael. With her bedding in hand, she wandered back down to the living room to set up. There was no way she was going to be able to sleep through all the commotion they were making if she was in her own bed. And since Mrs. Brill had retired and Ellen was away while the house was being refurbished, the whole kerfuffle would last twice as long without the best cleaners in the house.

Burrowing her head against her pillow, she wished her parents would be a little quieter. It wasn’t like Michael was particularly upset about having been sick. He was 9, for goodness sake! He didn’t cry over vomiting any more. And after the last few days, he’d certainly got more used to it than most. Yet, every single time, there was a huge fuss made, and Jane found herself trailing down to sleep on the couch before she got too cranky. And she was cranky. Last night, she had gotten so painfully close to shouting at her father to ‘shut up’. Thankfully, she had been able to hold her tongue and avoid a late-night-lecture on her attitude.

But it was so irritating when the one person you had to keep you company was ill and waking you up every night. Oh, yes, because her other friends were all away. With it being the summer holiday and a weekend, all of her friends were spending at least the weekend outside of London. Daisy and her family left to visit family on Friday, Austin and his family had gone to Paris for a week, Kate had gone to Brighton for the weekend, and her bestest friend, Flo, had gone to New York for the whole summer! She was soooo lucky. Her uncle was insanely rich, so they went every year. But she had to admit, she’d been a bit worried about her sailing on the Olympic, when the Titanic had sunk only a few months prior. But she seemed confident, and, well, it hadn’t sunk yet. So that was good enough.

But being left like this meant she had nothing to do all day. With nobody to see, she’d spent most of her time reading in the back garden. But she’s finished her collection and the books her parents had didn’t really appeal, and she was going to lose her mind if she had to rerererereread another one of her books for the fifty bajillionth time. She was actually going to go insane. Honestly, she didn’t know if she even wanted to read another book for a while. She’d read enough to satisfy her for months. So, what was she supposed to do?

She had considered asking her mother to teach her to sew. But she had been quite busy for a while with her work as a suffragette, taking on extra hours for the next few weeks and was tired when she got home. She had considered teaching herself to play the piano, too, and finally give the family a reason to even own the thing at all (seriously though, who had even bought it in the first place?), but considering none of the family could play, she’d have to teach herself, which she was quite certain would be irritating for the workers to have to listen to all day while they tried to do their job. And of course, she wasn’t in the mood to read again, so a trip to the library was out of the question. She wished she was better able to entertain herself. Michael was a huge fan of art, and had he been in Jane’s position, he would have probably taken a stack of paper and pencils into the back garden and spent all day drawing until he was a master. Unfortunately for Jane, she couldn’t draw like he could, and she was really interested in art anyway.

WHY WAS THERE NOTHING TO DO?!

Jane threw her arms out at either side of her, one to dangle over the edge of the coach and the other to just hit the back. She found herself counting exactly two thousand two hundred and twenty-four seconds before the clock chimed for 4am. Thankfully, the admiral didn’t set off his canon between 7pm and 7am, so that families could have an undisturbed evening and a restful sleep. But despite this, here she was, wide awake. At least by this point, things had gone quiet again upstairs. But she had no intention of returning to bed, not when the room probably still reeked of bile.

Failing to fall asleep, Jane’s mind continued to wander, searching for ideas for when the sun rose again. Why couldn’t Mary Poppins come back? She’d know what to do. She’d make the most mundane things into an adventure. Like when they tidied the nursery, or visited Uncle Albert, or went to the park. She could take them into a whole new world…

A new world…

THAT’S IT!

She could go exploring! With mother out on her rallies, Michael being bedbound and her father being busy with the workmen, nobody would notice if she went a bit further than normal when she was playing outside. It would be just like when they all explored the rooftops. She could go all over the city so long as she was back in time for dinner. There was literally nothing to stop her. Happy with her decision, Jane found it much easier to put a stop to her racing thoughts, and, soon enough, actually managed to get a few more hours of sleep before the morning canon blast woke the entire street again. All except for Jane, who could be quite a heavy sleeper at times. Winifred was the one who had the pleasure of waking her daughter.

“Jane, what on earth are you doing sleeping on the couch? You should be up in your own bed.” Feeling slightly groggy from being so suddenly woken, Jane rubbed her eyes,

“I came down while you were sorting out Michael and fell asleep. And anyway, it probably stinks up there anyway.” Being in quite a rush, Winifred felt less inclined to argue with her daughter and simply said,

“Alright then. You can sleep down here if he wakes you up again. But don’t be making a habit out of this. You’ll be staying in your own bed when he’s better.” This was rather a pointless reminder for Jane, as she didn’t particularly enjoy sleeping on the couch and would have never left her own bed without good reason. But of course, it’s one of every mothers’ jobs to remind their children of things they already know, moreso as a way to remind themselves over anything else. So, Jane nodded along and left her mother to get ready for work.

With the morning hustle and bustle well under way, she checked on her brother, as she had been doing ever since he got sick, to see if he was feeling better so she could have some company again. But, as she had expected, he was still not feeling up to it. So, she was on her own again. Just as usual, Winifred was out the door at 8 o’clock and George was downstairs only minutes later. Having booked time off work to oversee the renovations, he had been left as the only one to make breakfast, which was quite entertaining. He was always a fan of having a full English, but being so accustomed to having someone else cook for him (whether that be an actual cook or just another woman), he found himself a little out of his depth. He had played it safe for the last few days by only making cereal or toast or even a sandwich if he was really hungry, but today he seemed to be feeling confident. However, despite his confidence, the meal ended up being mostly burnt and even if it wasn’t, he had prepared far too much considering he and Jane were the only ones who would be eating it. In the end, most of it went to waste, apart from a few sausages that were still edible.

Luckily, Jane wasn’t feeling particularly hungry anyway, as she was too focussed on her plan. And just as expected, the workers arrived to start at 10 o’clock, and once the house was filled with drilling, hammering and sawing, she told her father she was going outside, to which he responded with a rather distracted “alright, have fun.”

She stayed on the street for a little while, just to test her theory. She was sure he wouldn’t notice her going so far, but she still wanted to check. But after 15 minutes of being completely out of view of the house, she was satisfied that he wouldn’t come looking for her, and she set out on her adventure.

Jane had no idea where she would go. But that was the fun part. Maybe she’d go to Big Ben or Parliament or have a wander down to the Thames. Who could say? But wherever she went, she’d find something to get involved with, just like if she was with Mary Poppins again.

She would make it the best day of her life!


	2. A Boy And His Book

Sun. Sun. Sun. It was the perfect summer day. Jane had started her adventure in the park for that very reason; the flowers were blooming in an array of colours akin to a rainbow, the clouds were dancing in spectacular formations and the duck pond (the greatest bit of the park, in her very humble opinion) was blessedly full of life. She wished she had had the foresight to bring some bread or at least money to visit the grocers across the way, but she hadn’t, and was therefore left only with one option: watching everyone else feeding them instead. Honestly, with how many people had shown up to feed the ducks, it was probably a good thing that she didn’t bring anymore, or else they’d wind up being diabetic.

On such a lively day, she was understandably rather excited to enjoy the sunshine and warm weather. Settling in the grass, she couldn’t help but pick at the daisies that had sprouted up all over the place. She was careful to hide behind a tree at the time, so as not to annoy the groundskeeper for being on the grass, while she linked the daisies together into a delicate chain. It would probably fall apart at the first sign of action, but it was no less beautiful, and the simple task allowed her to clear her head enough to focus on where she was actually going to go. As much as she’d like to wander aimlessly, if she did that, she would never find her way home.

It was after several minutes that she decided it was probably best to take the way into town that she would normally take when she went out with friends. Some of them were older than her and therefore were allowed to take a train into the city centre on their own and take the younger children in the area with them. Of course when they’d all gone in a big group with particularly young children, it had always been easier to walk, rather than trying to gather enough money for everyone to pay the fare for the tube. So from all the practice, she was able to put together a route in her head and set off confident that she’d be able to get back home again.

Beginning her stroll, Jane found she rather liked the grown up feeling that came with going out without an adult, and couldn’t help but wonder if she could convince Michael to come with her once he was feeling up to it. As she went further towards the city, her confidence grew, and she started to explore areas she had never been to before. On this particular day, she learnt that living in a city so popular with tourists was very handy, as it was very easy to find free tourist pamphlets with maps of the city on them. And before she knew it, she was traipsing all over the place to anything that sounded even remotely interesting.

However, while her morning was filled with exploring various parks, monuments and even a quick trip in a museum, she found one reason why her map wasn’t so handy. Because while it showed every point of interest in the city, it didn’t show what lay between them. So while she was on her way across town, she found herself wandering through a much less reputable area that she would have absolutely avoided, had she know it was there.

Most of the buildings were boarded up, with many closed shops still having their signs up, reminding the world of their wasted potential. Dirt and grime covered the streets, despite being frequented much less than the main roads. The whole area seemed to be a corner of the city that had been abandoned, leaving its forgotten inhabitants to live in squalor and disease. She did her best to ignore the creepy homeless man babbling nonsense down the ally, and pretended not to notice the woman sneering at her from across the street. She wasn’t welcome here, it seemed. So if she could simply pass through as soon as possible, that’d be great.

As she walked, Jane couldn’t help but wonder how on Earth a portion of the city could simply be ignored like that. How did people go about their day knowing that so many people lived in such filthy conditions? Wasn’t it the government’s job to fix that sort of thing? She’d heard that politicians could be pretty useless, especially with the way her own mother was fighting for her rights, but she didn’t know it was so bad. She always thought that even if things were unfair, they were at least somewhat bearable. But she wouldn’t be able to stand living like this. So why should anyone else?

Jane was finally pulled from her own mind by a commotion a little further down the street. A group of about six boys burst from an alley, deliberately knocking over several bins as they went. Only a second or two later, another came chasing after them, hopping over the bins and sprinting down the cobbled street, all the while shouting after them to stop.

Looking back, Jane realised there was no reason why she should’ve cared. Whatever was going on wasn’t her business and was hardly concerning enough to feel a need to get involved. But after spending so long thinking about everything wrong with the city she called home, she found herself being filled with an urge to fix something. Anything. Just something to make life a little better for somebody else. Something to remind them that people did really care. And although she was too young to organise a rally for their rights, she could start small and stop some rowdy kids.

Without any further thought, she chased after them. In the time it took to make her decision, the boys had gotten quite a distance ahead of her, and considering they already had a head start, it meant she was only able to see the lone boy that was chasing the group. Being taller than her, she assumed the boys were at least slightly older too, which explained how they were able to run so much faster than her. But despite her shorter legs, her determination was enough fuel to keep pace, and although she wasn’t able to get closer to them, she didn’t lose them either.

Weaving through small side streets and alleys, they crisscrossed their way around town. The six leading the chase seemed to be doing everything in their power to slow their pursuer, by simply knocking everything over that they could as they passed. And although the boy was finding it difficult to keep up with all the obstacles (even managing to fall flat on his face from tripping over a spilled cart of apples, and Jane took the opportunity to collect a few to use as her own obstacles) his determination, like Jane’s, wouldn’t allow him to give up. And no matter how many times he tripped or fell or skidded, he would only stop for a moment and be sprinting at twice the speed once he regained his balance.

It was several minutes later before the chase came to an end, when Jane had just lost the group after crossing a busy road and having to stop for the traffic. When she was finally able to cross and realised her situation, Jane was almost ready to give up. Tired, lost and with arms full of apples, she had just been about to call it quits, when she heard another commotion. Though this time, it didn’t sound like a chase, but a fight.

“Hey, let go of me! Give it back!” The shouting was cut off with a sharp punch and Jane was quick to follow the sound to a small alley. It seemed they’d only stopped because they’d reached a dead end, but with no way to easily escape, the six boys had chosen to fight the other.

The group didn’t notice her as the lone boy had his back to her, while the other six were focused on taunting him. The biggest kid in the group, who looked like he was also the leader, was holding something in the air, just out of reach of the smaller boy who was trying to jump and grab it. They were much older than him and were definitely taking advantage of that, only infuriating Jane further. The scuffle quickly became violent again as their pushing turned to kicking and then into one of them grabbing the smaller dark haired boy, punching him in the gut and flinging him to the floor as hard as possible.

Jane seethed, and with the boy on the ground making no attempt to get back up, she took the opportunity and made her move. As the boys stood over him, jeering and laughing, Jane took one of her apples, and with as much force as she could manage, flung it as hard as possible at the tall boy, nailing him just above his left eye.

“OW! What the hell?!” His hand flew to cover his eye as he spotted Jane at the entrance of the alley, already armed with another apple. She didn’t give them a chance to run before throwing it, with an accidentally lethal shot to his throat. While the big kid tried to catch his breath, the others came for her, but Jane was already throwing the rest of her apples at them before they were anywhere near her. And thanks to the boys not exactly being small targets, she only ended up missing two. Each one that hit, bounced back towards her and she collected every one of them with a sinister grin, even as they tried to grab her.

“Are you sure you want to try that?” Taking the biggest apple she had, she beat one of the boys with it, hitting him several times in the face, until he stepped far enough away for her to throw it at his crotch.

“AAAAAHHOW!!” With a gasp, he crouched down, struggling to breath past the wave of pain that was assaulting him. Looking to their friend, the rest of the boys seemed to finally get the message. So when the big one shouted,

“Screw this! Let’s get out of here.” He wasn’t meant with any disagreement, and the six of them dashed off, with the one she hit in the crotch trailing somewhat.

“And don’t come back!” With a delighted chuckle, Jane watched the boys scarper until they were well out of sight, before turning back to the other boy, who had gotten back on his feet during all the commotion.

He was looking a little worse for wear, but not terribly so. His grey jacket looked to be dirty, but she wasn’t so sure that it was the fight that caused that, considering how old the thing looked. His green overalls were in a slightly better state, but still not great. He wore shoes that were quite visibly falling apart and a cap sat atop his scruffy dark hair, looking older than her grandfather. He was quite clearly poor, but that didn’t seem to dampen the grin that spread across his face as he eyed her.

“Apples? That’s one I’ve never seen before. And I’ve seen a lot of fights. Who are you?” Jane laughed fondly,

“Jane. Jane banks.” She tossed the final apple she was holding to the boy, who only just caught it in time.

“I’m Jack.”

“Cool. Are you ok? What were those boys doing, anyway?”

“Oh, yeah, they were- wait-” Jack looked around seeming slightly frazzled, as he suddenly realised that whatever he was desperately hoping to see was definitely not there.

“Damn it. They took the book with them! I’ll never catch up to them now.”

“Is that what they were waving around? It’s just a book, what’s the problem?” Jack sighed as he walked out of the alley and stood on the pavement of the main road, hoping to see them still hanging around. But it seemed the gang was long gone, and he honestly had no clue where they could be.

“It’s not mine.” He groaned, “I borrowed it from the only library I’m allowed in. Most of them see me and immediately decide that they want me nowhere near their books. So it’s the first time I’ve been able to borrow anything. If I lose it, they’re definitely going to ban me. And it’s not like I can afford a replacement.” She had to admit, she was a little surprised that a library would turn someone away for their looks. Sure, he was a bit dirty, but a quick wash would fix that. So why else would they turn him away?

“Well, we could always tell a police man that you’ve been robbed.” Jack scoffed at the idea,

“Are you kidding? They’re never going to take any of this seriously.”

“Then we can go find them and get it back ourselves.” Jack’s brow furrowed as he turned to her with his arms crossed.

“You’re saying ‘we’ a lot.”

“Well, yeah, I want to help you.”

“But you don’t even know them, how could you help?”

“Well they look like big bullies, so I doubt you’re too friendly with them or know all about their lives, either. We both know just as much as each other.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know you.”

“I already told you my name,” she laughed, “and I saved you, so you know I’m not trying to bully you, like those other kids. So, do you really want me to stand around and talk about my life aswell or do you want to get that book back?” Jack was baffled by her response, but he had to admit, a quick wit like her would probably come in handy. And after facing six older boys, it was clear she wasn’t scared. Why not give her a chance?

“Alright. Come on, then.” He said it like a challenge, and that was really all Jane needed to hear to be fully committed. She never liked to back down from a challenge. Without another word, Jack grabbed her arm and pulled her along to get searching. She was certainly a little startled by the sudden movement, but if he wanted to get moving, she knew she could keep up.

“Great. We’ll have that book back within the hour. Just you wait.”


	3. How About Cannes?

“Right, so where are we going?” Jane had been wondering for a few minutes what they were actually meant to be doing. The two of them had made it several streets away from where they met, before Jane gave up trying to figure everything out for herself. At the question, Jack seemed to realise that he also didn’t know where they were going.

“I hoped they might be hanging around, but it looks like they’re gone.”

“Then we need to find if anyone else has seen them. Do you know their names?” Jack sighed,

“Only one. The kid that had the book, the big one, he’s called Justin. Justin Bennett. I’m pretty sure he lives somewhere nearby, so we should be able to find someone who knows him.”

“Great, then let’s start down there at that café.” Jane said, pointing down the street to a café which had several tables outside that were completely filled. “They probably saw them.” The pair hurried down the street, desperate not to take too long so they’d stand a decent chance at finding them.

The café in question, had five tables filled with mostly women enjoying their afternoon with friends while their husbands were at work, and so upon being interrupted by the pair of curious children, they were quick to answer that they saw the boys running down Walton Street and that’s all they knew and to please leave them alone, now.

The two made it to Walton Street easily enough, but as they expected, the boys were long gone. And upon asking a group of builders of a half finished yet already old and dirty looking house, found that they had stopped for a while on the street, before they all went their separate ways.

“Did they have a book with them?” Jack had asked.

“They had something. I’m not sure what it was exactly, but it probably was a book. They all seemed to be laughing about it for some reason before they got bored and went home.”

“Did you see who took it?”

“The big one with the ratty ginger hair had it.” He said, taking a puff on a dying cigarette. “Went past the pub on the corner, but after that I’ve not a clue where he went.” Jack sighed. He was glad to know who had it, but he was more interested in knowing where to go.

“Ok, thanks.” Together, Jane and Jack headed past the pub and found themselves in a small market. It was extremely busy, with carts full of products lining the road inbetween several stalls being manned by all kinds of people. The air was filled with general chatter as people went about their business, peppered with a few rather passionate disagreements regarding the price of whatever product a frugal customer wanted from their stubborn stall holder. A few delivery trucks’ fumes had filled the street with a sort of fog and the distinct smell of something burning, though that could also be partly attributed to the man selling freshly cooked fish on the corner that had definitely been on the stove for too long.

The buzz was almost overwhelming in its intensity, enough so that when Jane started walking through it, Jack didn’t notice she’d left until he tried to ask where they should start. By that point, she was already half way down the road, talking with a man who appeared to sell an array of fruits and vegetables, leaving Jack to chase after her and arrive just in time to hear some of the conversation,

“Justin Beret?”

“Bennett.” Jack corrected, arriving at Jane’s side.

“Oh, yeah, I think I know him. Big kid with ginger hair, right?”

“Yes, that’s him!” Jane giggled excitedly.

“He drops off my paper in the morning. Works for the Adams & Sons newsagents on Whitby Way. He’s a bit mischievous, but he’s never late.” Jane’s grin couldn’t possibly spread any wider as she was already starting to form a plan. Jack seemed to notice this too, quickly thanking the stall holder before dragging her away to pick her brains.

“So go on then, I can tell you already have an idea. Let’s hear it.”

“How good are you at breaking in to things?” Jack was taken aback by this, having expected her to just want to ask Justin’s boss to get the book from him. He certainly wasn’t expecting a girl that looked so sweet and innocent wanted to commit a crime.

“Why would we be breaking in? Surely, we should just talk to his boss?” Jane signed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world,

“His boss isn’t going to want to get involved in this, and he’ll probably not tell us where to find him in case we’re the ones causing all the trouble.” At least that’s made some sense.

“Then why are we breaking in?”

“Well, he probably keeps his bag for all the newspapers there. If we can sneak in and take it, we can use it to trade and get the book back.” Jack had to admit, it would probably work. They just had to be careful not to get caught, or else they really would be in hot water. There was no way he’d be able to so his deliveries without the bag for all the papers, so if Justin really cared about his job, he’d have no choice but to trade.

“You know, you have a real tricky mind for a girl with a pink bow in her hair.”

“Exactly,” she laughed, giving him a mischievous wink that made his face feel a little warmer than warranted, “nobody would suspect a thing.”

With another infectious giggle, she whisked him away to Justin’s newsagents, taking him by the hand as they dashed along the pavement. Jack would be lying if he said his hand wasn’t fizzing at the contact, but it wasn’t something you would’ve thought to ask if you were one of the many people going about their business in the city. They were busy wondering how would the be able to afford their rent? When did they need to pick up their child from their friend’s house? What’s the meaning of life? Questions that were a perfect distraction from the two children from wildly different social standings hanging around the newsagents and peeking through the windows.

If they expected to just be able to walk in, they were out of luck. A sign had been hung on the door by the owner, saying he was away on holiday, paper deliveries would run as normal, but you had to wait for his return to sign up to receive papers. It was disheartening to say the least, but Jack was quick to point out that although it would harder to get in, nobody would be inside to notice. However, Jane was even quicker to warn him that somebody may be inside despite it being closed.

The result: Jane and Jack crept round the back of the building and upon spotting a rather high window, climbed onto a bin to reach it. When Jack reached out to see if it was unlocked, he was lucky to find the lock was very rusty in this particularly old building, and therefore, it didn’t take too much effort to push the window hard enough to snap the lock open.

“Careful!” Jane whispered, “It looks like there a lot of junk in there. Don’t knock it over.” Indeed, she was right. The room was a cluttered mess. But that was likely due to the fact that- based on the room’s rather small size- it was probably a store cupboard.

Several boxes were piled high, but were just about heavy and full enough to support their weight despite only being made of cardboard. They provided enough of a staircase to get down to the floor, that neither of them made a sound. Then it was simply a case of weaving between the junk (which was rather tricky considering the piles of rubbish cast a lot of dark shadows, and there was no light other than what came through the tiny window) to get towards the front of the cupboard, where they found, hanging just next to the door, all the paper boys’ bags.

Each one had a name written on a tag to tell who they belonged to, presumably to know how many papers to put in the bag for each individual boy’s route. They quietly sifted through until they came across Justin’s, the letters looking the scruffiest of all the written names, although still legible… just.

“Alright,” Jack whispered, slinging the empty bag over his shoulder, “we’ve got it. Let’s go.”

But, as the two turned to leave, a new voice emerged.

“Then it’s just a case of grabbing what we can and getting out as fast as possible.” Jane and Jack froze.

“Yeah but who’s the distraction? Someone’s gonna have to drive in the van or else they’ll know something’s up.”

“That’s Seven’s job. I don’t care what it takes. Just go like a bat out of hell and meet at the warehouse when you’ve lost them.”

“Sure thing.”

The children could hardly believe their ears. Was this a robbery?! Had they seriously walked in on some people planning a robbery? Jack shuddered at the thought and was quick to head back to the boxes and leave, but Jane wasn’t on the same page at all.

“Jane, what are you doing?!” Jack whispered urgently, “come on, we have to get out of here before they notice us.” But Jane needed to know. It sounded like a grand plan, and all she could think about was if they were going to try to rob the Fidelity Fiduciary bank. Of course her father wouldn’t be there, he was still busy managing the builders at home, but she would hate to know that his work friends could be in danger. If she could just find out for certain what was going on, they could tell the police before the robbers could even get there.

Slowly, she twisted the doorknob and cracked the door open a sliver. She daren’t open it a crack further, in case the door were to creak. As a result, she could barely see a thing, but it at least made it a little easier to hear.

“I’ve checked the tunnel, it’s all clear. It starts in the cleaner’s break room in the third cupboard, and comes out three streets away just next to the safe house. There’s just enough room to crawl on your hands and knees.”

There looked to be about ten men sitting around a table in a break room, of sorts, as one of them looked through various notes and plans laid out on the papers before them. She noticed one appeared to be dressed like a shopkeeper, and she assumed he was the man who owned the place. So much for being on holiday. The men seemed to come from all sorts of backgrounds, with the only common trend being that they looked rather poor. Off to the side, two sleeping Rottweilers lay next to a rather large crate of what looked to be a few types of guns, a good mixture of both large and small, and more than enough to make Jane’s heart drop into the deepest pits of her stomach.

“Great. And once Seven’s lured the rozzers away, we meet up at the warehouse and head for Dover.” The room filled with a rather confident laughter. They were absolutely certain it would work.

“You know, Paris has had some lovely weather these past few months, but I think a little further south would be nice. How about Cannes?” The voice was met with agreement before someone else asked,

“What did the informant say? How much are we looking at?” There was another laugh,

“He was right, it’s the perfect time to strike. Should be about 500 thousand in cash and god knows what other valuables in the safety deposit boxes. Could be another 50k in those things.” A burst of excitement erupted through the room as Jane watched in horror.

“We’ve got two hours till we start this, so go home, get ready and sort out any unfinished business. Remember, we’re not coming back after this, we’re heading straight to Dover for the midnight ferry. Make sure everything we’re taking is already at the warehouse, ready to go.” He was met with a resounding agreement. “Perfect, meet back here at 2.” The group stood up, and Jane took the opportunity to get going while they were drowning her out with the screeches of their chairs untucking.

Jane and Jack were halfway up the boxes, but were completely unaware of the man approaching the cupboard. They didn’t hear his footsteps over the chatter of the others, as he came to hang up his apron before he left. So by the time the door opened, they had no chance to hide.

A light came streaking through the doorway, almost blinding the two as they turned to face the door in shock. With nowhere to hide, the two were overwhelmed with terror, freezing as their eyes fell upon the figure. He was tall. He was muscular. And he REALLY wasn’t too pleased.

“Well, well, well, what the hell’s going on here?”


	4. 11&12

“DAMN IT! What the hell are we supposed to do now?!” Jack and Jane didn’t know who the man was that had begun frantically pacing when the shop keeper showed them to the group, but he certainly didn’t sound too pleased at their arrival. Non of them did. The ten men had stared in confusion initially, but when the pair were dragged out of the cupboard (causing them to drop the paper bag in the process), they had erupted into a mixture of anger and a degree of panic, with the rottweilers even trying to launch at them, despite being tied up in the corner of the room. “THEY’RE NEVER GONNA SHUT UP ABOUT THIS!”

“Oi, Three, calm down.” The bald man apparently called Three didn’t calm down at all, he was quite clearly jittery as he looked between his boss and the kids, but he at least stopped rambling and pacing.

The boss was certainly an assertive man. He wasn’t really tall, but his broad shoulders and commanding presence made him seem much larger and more intimidating. His square features were rather plain and he didn’t really stand out much from the average man, with his chevron moustache and neat black hair. Like the other members of the group, he wore typical working class wear, with an old ill fitting suit and the collar popped up. His steel blue eyes glared coldly at the children as if they were the muck on his scarily heavy duty boots. He sighed, pressing a finger against his head and rubbing his temple, as he rifled through his pocket for his watch, grumbling to himself upon seeing the time.

“We don’t have time for this.” As if sensing what one of the others was about to suggest, he quickly cut in again. “But we’re not going to let them leave so easily. Three’s right. If we let them go, they’re gonna run right to the police.”

“We won’t! We promise!” Jane pleaded. But it didn’t seem to convince them.

“So we need to keep them?” The shopkeeper asked, “But won’t they just be a liability? And if we lock them up here, someone’s gonna find them eventually and have them squawking.”

“Yeah!” A rather burly, almost 7 foot, man agreed, “So we kill them.” He was met with wide angry eyes from the boss, who was looking like he was really about to lose it, based on the way his eye twitched.

“NO! I don’t know if you’ve noticed the time, Five, but we don’t have much of it. Certainly not enough to cover up two whole bloody murders. We have a robbery this afternoon, remember? And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not reschedule the damn thing!” Five backed down a little at this, seeming somewhat ashamed at how he was being spoken to like a simpleton. But he quietened down anyway. Despite being much larger than the boss, he clearly didn’t feel happy to invoke his wrath.

Jane squirmed slightly, the shopkeeper’s grip on her arm staring to be distractingly painful as the argument intensified. Jack seemed equally concerned, and from the way his eyes stared intently at the floor, she could see he was deep in thought, before he was struck with an idea. She just hoped that whatever it was would be good.

“We could help you!”

What?

“What?”

Jane’s eyes frantically darted between Jack and the boss, desperately trying to figure out what was going through his head. Help them rob a bank?! Seriously?! Jack grinned anxiously at the man, with a rather pathetic look of “please don’t kill us” in his eyes, as the boss turned the idea over his his mind with a rather sour expression.

“And how the hell could you help us?”

“We’re small, so we can get in to things. And if we turn on the waterworks, then BOOM! Instant distraction,” he beamed, gesticulating wildly. “And we’re just a pair of innocent kids,”he said, sarcastically, “nobody would guess what we’re up to.”

“You don’t seem like the thieving sort.” He said.

“Exactly. Nobody would suspect a thing.”

Jane quietly huffed at the use of her own words, but was surprised to find that Jack’s idea wasn’t immediately rejected.

“So what would you be wanting to get out of this?”

“Not much, just your help to get a book from a kid who robbed me.” The man groaned, rolling his eyes as he finally decided the idea was stupid.

“We don’t have time that rubbish. I’m not going all over London to search for some kid.”

“But we know who he is!” Jack begged, “It’s Justin Bennett. He works here. That why we came here in the first place.” The shopkeeper holding them perked up at that and finally spoke up at that moment, recognising the name,

“He’s one of my paperboys. I’d be able to go get it well before we need to be off.” The boss considered it for a moment, before finally giving in.

“I guess that’d work, then. If they help us, they can’t squawk unless they want to get themselves in trouble. So why not?” Jane and Jack sighed in relief as they felt the grip on their arms loosening, and as the man stepped away, the whole room went quiet for a moment to see whether or not they’d try and bolt. But despite the opportunity, they knew they wouldn’t get far, so Jack and Jane stayed put, while the boss decided what to do next.

“Go sort yourselves out and be back in for 2. I’ll stay here and watch ‘em.” The men filed out of the room quietly, taking the dogs with them, and left the shop, the bell over the door jingling as they went. Jane, Jack and the boss were left alone in the break room, and it was at this point that Jane’s many lessons from her parents about stranger danger, made her a little more concerned about being left with this strange man she’d never met before. And knowing he had a crate of guns to wave around and threaten them with, made her more than a little antsy.

Why on Earth Jack had roped them into this, she’d never know. And he was still trying so hard to get that stupid book. There were bigger this going on! Who cares about a book when your life is in danger?! But she was afraid to voice her opinion about this while they weren’t alone. The boss, who’s name she was getting more curious about the longer she went without it, was sitting at the table, ignoring them, after having sat them down on the other side of the room. He was quietly trying to figure out what they’d be doing during the heist, and after several bad ideas that were thrown out (she assumed that was why he was screwing up and throwing away his paper), he finally had a plan.

It was only now that the boss knew what he was going to do with them, that he felt comfortable enough giving them any details. For a start, he told them his name: One. It seemed that they all went by numbers instead of names, in a sort of hierarchy. But it was mostly so that they didn’t need to risk using their real names. As a result, he didn’t ask for their names and simply dubbed Jack as Eleven and Jane as Twelve. And although she didn’t voice her complaint, she knew that she was lower on the hierarchy just because she was a girl. Well she’d show show them who’s boss.

One explained that they’d be helping Six with the safety deposit boxes. Six would open them with a crowbar and they had to empty everything inside them into a bag. Then they’d join the rest of the group outside the vault, where they would be given jobs as they were needed. It was all rather simple and most notably meant that they’d never be alone, so they wouldn’t be able to snitch, not until the heist was over and then they could be blamed aswell, anyway. One said they’d go through the tunnel with them to escape, but they’d leave them to go home once they were away, with the reminder that they were not to tell anyone or else they’d be killed before the police could even arrest them for their involvement.

The two had quietly agreed to the plan, knowing that they had no other choice. One seemed happy enough with their response and looked at his watch, noting there was still over an hour before they were all meeting up again.

“Well now that’s sorted, I have business to attend to. And don’t bother trying to escape,” he said, locking the door to the store cupboard, “you’re stuck with us for the whole day.” He beamed smugly as he left, locking the door to the rest of the shop with a click, and presumably locking the front door too, just in case. With that, they really were trapped, as there weren’t actually any windows in the break room like there was in the store cupboard.

“This is your fault.”

“What!” Jack’s eyes went as wide as saucers at the accusation. “How is it my fault? I saved us!”

“You made us into criminals just for your stupid book!”

“Only because the other option was death!” Jane turned away at that, tapping her foot, which only served to wind up Jack further, who huffed and turned away as well.

Jane started eyeing up the place for any way to escape, but it seemed there was nothing. So instead of leaving, she instead settled on making the thieves’ lives harder. Hell would freeze over the day she stood by and let her father’s workplace be robbed without even trying to do anything about it. The papers containing their plans were pretty useless, as they’d have already memorised them and it seemed they had most of their equipment for the heist stored elsewhere. The only thing that they’d left was the crate of guns.

Settling on that, she paced over to the box, and pulled out a smaller gun to start with. She’d never actually handled one before and found it surprisingly heavy. It also meant she didn’t really know what she was doing, which is why she was especially careful not to touch the trigger and kept it pointing at the wall in front of her. She’d never seen anyone get shot before, and she didn’t really want to find out what it was like.

Seeing her handling to weapons, Jack jumped up from his seat and joined her across the room.

“You’re not going to try steal that, are you? They’re going to notice.” Jane looked at Jack as if what she was doing was completely obvious, despite not actually having done anything yet.

“I know that. That’s why I’m just taking the bullets.” Jack seemed a little more comfortable with that, but was still rather unsure whether it was a good idea. The ends of the bullets could be seen slightly at the end of the casing. They would probably realise. There were slightly bigger guns in the crate though, too, which were most likely the main weapons of choice, so even though you could see whether or not the revolver was loaded, if they didn’t pay much attention to it, they might get away with it for a while, at least until it was too late to do much about it. Though from the look on Jane’s face, Jack assumed she’d try to take the bullets out of as many guns as possible. And there was no way they were going to miss something like that.

Pressing on the latch, the barrel tipped to the side, to reveal six bullets slotted in. Carefully, she tipped them out and slipped them into her pocket to throw away later. Though she figured she could also give them to the police. They were smart people. They could probably link them to the gun and the gun to the people, or something cool like that.

As she flipped the barrel closed again, she put the gun back into the crate and reached for another slightly larger one this time. But as she was pulling it out, the jingling of the bell over the shop’s front door rang out loud and clear. The two gasped and Jane quickly put the gun back as quickly as she could without just dropping it in and making loads of noise.

The footsteps came closer and closer and closer as Jane and Jack practically dived across the room, their hearts beating a thundering rhythm in their chests as they sat back down where they’d been left, just in time for the door knob to jiggle and the person on the other side to realise it was locked. The voice grumbled about how One was always so ‘unnecessarily careful’ by locking every door in the shop, giving a moment for the children to calm themselves down and not look so suspicious.

When the door finally did open, it was the shopkeeper again, or ‘Four’ to the rest of the group. He looked fairly calm and had changed his clothes to that of a rather nice suit, befitting of a wealthy gentleman looking to do his business at the bank. Though they couldn’t help but notice his bloodied fist and Jack’s book in the other hand. Tucking it under his arm, he reached for a handkerchief from his pocket, to clean his fist as he chirped in an all too pleased manner,

“I got your book!”


	5. Behave

It was 2:27pm precisely, though nobody in the van knew that, as One’s watch was 5 minutes behind, and nobody dared to question him. He liked to be early. They would arrive at the bank any minute, which meant the gang were already going about unloading the box of guns and hiding them about their persons. Each one had a revolver to tuck under their jacket, while the larger guns were disassembled and hidden in briefcases, to be secretly put together in some quiet corner. Jack and Jane sat up front with Seven, who was driving. They had Eight to thank for that idea, as he thought they’d look more innocent if people could see children in the van. Though, said children didn’t particularly like being used as a cover up. Especially if someone were to see them, recognise them and raise the alarm at being taken away in a strange man’s van. They didn’t want more trouble to deal with, they had enough going on already, thank you very much.

By the time 2:30 rolled around (One’s time), they pulled up on Finch Lane, with the intention of walking the rest of the way. One to Four would go in through their secret entrances and head to the vault and the rest would walk through the front door, ready to handle a potential hostage situation, while Six and the children cleared out the safes. And just before they split, One generously gave Jack and Jane a cold glare and the reminder to behave.

The children didn’t exactly need reminding, especially while accompanying Six for their part of the plan. The man was rather tall, with broad shoulders and a clean-shaven, chiselled face. He seemed very much the same regimented type as Jane’s own father. Like the rest of the members who were going through the front door, they were all dressed in fine suits to fit in with the other gentlemen you might expect to see going about their business. This meant that Jane, in her own rather nice apparel, fit right in with looking like the daughter of such a man, but Jack didn’t as much. Which is why Six had made sure before they headed out to give him something new to wear. It was hardly anything glamorous, but it was something clean, new and slightly smarter than the raggedy jacket and overalls he had before. They certainly looked passable for a “family” that was just meant to fade into the background, and that’s all they needed.

They walked through the front door like absolutely nothing was wrong. And it was enough for the children to pretend that they weren’t actually going to be robbing a bank. Jane was actually half-tempted to say hello to some of the bankers she recognised from the visits her father had permitted after Mary had helped them (oh, how she wished Mary could save her now). But if she stepped out of line, Six had a revolver at his hip that he could easily threaten her with, and there was only a 1 in ten chance that it was the unloaded gun (and that’s if someone hadn’t realised and put bullets back in it). There was no way she’d be willing to take that chance. So, as much as it pained her to do so, she kept her mouth shut.

“Wait over there.” His short command was given with a disinterested gesture to a bench just out of the way of the rest of the crowd. He clearly didn’t like having children to deal with whilst doing his job, but given the added efficiency from having two extra pairs of hands, he wasn’t going to disregard them completely. They did as they were told, which seemed to satisfy him as he went about talking to someone to take them to open their safety deposit box.

According to Six, they were kept in a separate room similar to the main vault, but not nearly as secure, and when you needed access, they would send someone down with a key to retrieve the box and bring it up to another room for you to go through it. This meant they weren’t going to be able to just walk in and start opening drawers, but would need to get someone to take them down.

“What if we just ran away now?” Jane whispered to Jack. “Its busy in here, he probably wouldn’t be able to catch us if he bothered to chase at all.”

“Yes, but don’t forget that we’re not the only ones who came through the front door.” Jack looked around the foyer. He could just about see Five with his briefcase standing with Nine by the front door, ready to bar it shut at first notice. Ten and Eight were standing out of the way of the crowd, leaning against the wall slightly to hide the fact that they’d already assembled their weapons. And given that Seven was out of sight, Jack assumed he was probably away somewhere to assemble his, too. There was no chance of getting out. They absolutely would get caught if they even tried.

Jane was just about to argue her plan to get them out of it, when Six returned to collect them and head to the safes. He had a young man with him, that was wearing a nice black suit and white gloves, with the kind of hat you would most likely expect from an important military officer. His smile grew warm upon seeing the children, and they mentally apologised for the trouble they were about to cause him. But of course, they did as they’d been told, when Six said,

“Come on, you two.”

“Right this way, sir.”

Less than a minute had passed by the time they made it to a small room containing several chairs around several tables, ready for use by those rummaging through their belongings. But that wasn’t their final destination. With it being empty, Six was happy to make more of a show out of how he pulled out his revolver and aimed it at the poor man, who could only stare in utter shock as he made his demands,

“You will take us to the safes right this instant and you won’t say a thing about it to anyone unless you want a bullet through your head.” He looked between Six and the children, trying to figure out if this was really happening, but with the death glare and two looks of shame he was being given, he figured it was best to listen.

“Of-of course.” He swallowed thickly, starting to sweat, “Right this way.” To his credit, he stayed very professional about the whole situation, as he led the group out and down the corridor. Six kept his revolver under his jacket the whole time, occasionally reminding the man that it was there with a jab through the fabric, making him flinch. With the escort, people who normally would’ve questioned members of the public being brought down restricted access corridors chose not to mention anything and instead trust the worker with them, which meant that upon arriving at their destination, they had gotten no more than a query look.

He unlocked the door and went inside with them, revolver still pressed against his back. Though he clearly wanted nothing more than to be as far away as possible. Jane couldn’t help but cringe at the betrayed look he gave her, confusion written all over his features as he tried to figure out why someone would be doing this to him. This wasn’t at all what he signed up for when he went for the job.

“Now,” Six started, “I’m going to give you two options here. You can either let me tie you up and leave you here for someone to find later, or I can kill you instead. What will it be?” The sickly sweat grin that he flashed for half a second was answered without a single word. Instead, the young man simply held out his wrists for Six to tie.

“Good man.”

Not a single person in the bank would have guessed that their security had been breached in such a way, even as one of their poor colleagues was tied up, gagged and left in a corner to watch as a man worked through each safe, wrenching the front panels off for children to get inside and clear out. Jack and Jane could only cringe as they opened each one, finding more valuables inside than the last: sentimental hand-me-downs, important deeds and documents, passports, watches, jewellery. They even came across a diamond encrusted broach. While they started out trying to be careful with the belongings (handling jewellery gently, keeping papers in a neat pile to avoid crumpling and so forth), they found it was impossible to do if they wanted to keep up with Six, who was wrenching the panels open at an incredible speed.

“Hurry up. We haven’t got all day! We need to get a move on if we don’t want to get caught.” The children started tipping out the contents of each drawer rather than placing things in the bag. There were about 200 boxes in the room, but only about 150 had been marked as having anything in them. And the ones that were in use, often didn’t have more than some papers inside. They didn’t know what they were and didn’t have time to check, so the two could only hope that there were other copies of the documents elsewhere. As for the personal items, they couldn’t think of anything to make them feel better apart from the fact some things looked old and broken (though that made them assume they had a lot of sentimental worth, which was probably even worse).

Jack’s eyes darted to the door and back every few seconds, terrified that someone would walk in at any moment and catch them in the act. But as his anxiety rose and his shame grew from a nibbling hole to a great abyss in his gut, nobody came. It seemed they were lucky, or that the others were keeping everyone away. He just wished he knew more of the plan so he could calm down a little. Jane, on the other hand, had gotten ahold of her frantic breathing already, having already accepted that they had no other choice. She instead was wondering how to get away as soon as possible. She didn’t exactly want to go through and help with the whole robbery, being a much bigger fan of leaving as soon as they’d finished with the safes. Maybe Six wouldn’t mind after they’d helped. But she was much too scared to ask.

“Alright, we’re nearly done, now.” Jack and Jane looked up to see that Six had finished opening up all the panels and had started emptying them out as well. It only took another few minutes before they’d cleared everything out and were ready to leave.

As the children zipped up the bag, Six took the hostage’s keys and pocketed them, pleased that each one had actually had the door they fit in printed just below the head of each key. Collecting the bag and throwing it over his shoulder, Six left the room with Jane and Jack in tow, heading for the door marked “STAFF ONLY” and heading down the several flight of stairs it led to. This time they were heading to the vault, and both Jane and Jack could already tell that it was going to be a lot harder to get in. They could only hope that whatever happened, it didn’t cause too much commotion.

But of course, it wouldn’t all go so smoothly. A bank robbery at such a prestigious place is bound to go wrong at some point. And in this particular case, it had only just begun.

George Banks wasn’t expecting to go to the Bank when he woke up that morning. But with all the work going on in the house, he had come up with the rather sensible idea of updating the inventory of household possessions for their home insurance. With so much furniture and toys being sold and replaced with newer and more expensive furnishings (all thanks to his promotion), there was a lot of changes he would have to make. And what with Winifred at work, Michael being bedridden and Jane being out, he figured he may as well crack on with it rather than saving it for later. However, that meant a trip to the bank was in order. He didn’t often find a need to go through his safe deposit box, as it only contained spare copies of documents he kept at home, but it contained the only copy he had of his household inventory, and he didn’t particularly feel like rewriting it from scratch.

It should only have taken an hour to get there and back. Little did he know what was going on below. While he sat at a table, waiting to be brought the tray, his daughter had just escaped down to the Bank’s main vault. And only 2 minutes later, the mess they’d left behind was discovered. Of course, the hostage had been immediately freed and was going on about a man breaking into the safes with some children. Obviously, the immediate course of action wasn’t to inform Mr Banks that he wouldn’t be served today (though, strangely, that did cross the worker’s mind for a moment), but instead to head down the hall and find the alarm, shut down the bank and inform Mr Dawes Jr.

However, when he pulled the alarm, it wasn’t the bank’s decision to shut down. All throughout the building, the ten men that knew their plan inside and out, knew that was their cue to take over. And before Mr Banks could find out what was going on, the doors were locked, and the 5 men in the lobby pulled out their guns, firing in the air.

“EVERYONE ON THE GROUND, NOW!”


	6. Hopeless

The alarm was deafening. A ringing that seemed to crawl into one’s head and rattle in from the inside at an unbearable pitch. Jane and Jack had taken to covering their ears, as, despite being underground with the vault, it was no quieter. In fact, it was louder, as the vault had an alarm just outside that they were all standing by. However, the thugs seemed mostly unaffected. While most were just mildly annoyed, Three was actually almost deaf already from dealing with so many alarms in his time and working in generally loud settings. He barely even acknowledged it when the ringing started.

“We need to find Dawes, now! If the alarm’s going, then the police have probably already been called. We don’t have time to be dicking about right now.” One was tapping his foot rather frantically, clearly trying to hold back a more violent outburst. The alarm had gone of a little earlier than he would’ve liked, and he’d initially thought Six and the children had been caught, as it set off a minute before they returned. The fright that his perfect, beautiful plan could have gone wrong, had ruffled his feathers more than he’d ever care to admit, and now, he was in need of everything else to go just right.

“Two, Three, go get Dawes. We’re going to have to work quickly now if we don’t want to get caught, so hurry up and get that code.” His gaze drifted to Four and Six, “You two help the others with the hostages. Go check around the place and make sure nobody’s running free. Six can stay guarding them when you’re done, but Four, I want you back here to help with the vault.” Four nodded, “Same for you two.” He added, gesturing back to Two and Three.

Just as he had ordered, the four of them headed off down the hall, Two and Three going left to Dawes’ office while Four and Six went right to get to the main foyer. Jane and Jack were left alone with One, who set about opening up all the bags, so they were ready to be filled once they got the vault open. They also got an eyeful of the backup plan, in case Dawes Jr chose not to comply: several explosives that could be detonated at the push of a button.

While the children stared in horror, One was busy grumbling to himself over what he found in one of the bags.

“Why the hell is this in here?” One pulled out a book that he was fairly certain didn’t belong to any of his men.

“That’s mine,” Jack piped up. One looked at him coldly, as if he had just tried to sabotage the entire plot.

“Why was it in there?” He growled.

“Four put it in there when he brought it back from Justin. He said I could have it when we’re done with the heist.” Groaning like an irritated adolescent, he shoved the book to Jack, who took it in confusion.

“Well its in the way, so you can have it now. But I suggest you keep your hands free. Because if this all goes to hell just because you’re holding on to a bloody book, then I’d be more than happy to beat you with the damn thing!” Jack didn’t take this lightly. He nodded and slipped it under his waistcoat, to hold it tightly against his side (so he could easily keep it held against him if he pressed his upper arm down on it), slipping the bottom half under his belt to make sure it wouldn’t slip, while One went back to organising everything.

The two children sat quietly for several minutes, attempting to ignore the alarm, which was still blaring. They were both particularly antsy and wished for nothing more than to get out of there. But they knew that as long as they were stuck with One, they had no chance of that. But after the world’s longest five minutes, the alarm finally was shut off. And although they were all rather glad of it, One seemed to be a little more stressed about the implications, based on how his head shot up through the silence and his eyes darted back and forth, despite nothing else changing in or around the vault.

“Damn it. Who turned off the alarm?” He tried to ignore the silence and get back to his job, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. It could have been someone from their group, or if it was on a timer, it could have switched itself off, or help could’ve arrived for the hostages and they did it instead. The latter two explanations meant the alarm had been going for long enough for help to be arriving if it hadn’t already. And he was starting to feel rather impatient about it. He needed to know, now. Not whenever the others could be arsed to come tell him.

“Oi, you two.” Jack and Jane looked up in alarm at his sudden and unnecessarily loud voice. “Go find out what’s going on with the rozzers. If they’re here, I need to know. Now be quick about it!” Without a word, the two hopped up from their places sitting on the floor, and raced out, heading down the hallway. It was only when they were sure they were out of earshot, that they plucked up the courage to speak. And even then, they only whispered and considered the distance to not be heard to be twice as far as it really was.

“We need to get out of here!” Jack blurted out as soon as he could.

“But we don’t even know where to go. They’ve probably locked all the doors by now. We won’t be able to just walk out.”

“Then we need something else. Didn’t they say there was a tunnel?” Jane thought for a moment, her face lighting up for the briefest moment before it fell again,

“Yeah, there is somewhere, but I can’t remember where they said it was.”

“I think they said it had something to do with the cleaners.” Jack pondered, scratching his head, “Maybe a janitor’s closet?” Jane sighed at the hopelessness of their predicament, but agreed anyway.

“Well, it’s a start.”

Upstairs, things seemed a little less hopeless, purely because the reality of what was happening still hadn’t quite sunk in yet. But that was to be expected. Most people don’t expect to be taken hostage on any normal day. Certainly a man who was still riding the magic high from a certain nanny. He’d been in the mindset for almost 2 years and yet it still seemed her spell on him never left. He’d been joyful and had been promoted and had an all-round more pleasant life. He hadn’t faced many trials or tribulations at all since she left. So having this notion that everything was perfect being so brutally shattered took a fair while to take effect. It wasn’t until he’d been brought out of the waiting room and dumped on the floor with the other hostages in the foyer, that he realised he was actually in any danger.

Despite this, George Banks was still not as alarmed as most may have otherwise been. Although he had learnt to have a warmer heart and an open mind, he still had his regimented and stoic nature to fall back on when the time called. Something that he could attribute to having been in the army in his younger years before following his father’s footsteps and working in the Bank. Hell, the man had fought in the Boxer Rebellion. He wasn’t scared of being shot! He’d been shot plenty of times before and he wasn’t dead yet. Still, while that gave him confidence that he’d probably get out alive at some point, he was still smart enough to realise that he was outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, and outplanned. So, if he really did want to avoid being killed, it was probably best to do as he was told until help arrived.

As he sat on the floor (rather hoping that it had been cleaned recently, as he was wearing his more expensive dress pants), he started to wonder what could realistically be done about the situation. He had to thank the heavens for small mercies, as he was on his own. Had Michael been up to it or if Jane hadn’t been out playing with her friends, he may very well have taken them with him. But being alone meant he only had himself to worry about, and he could comfort himself with the thought that neither of his children were anywhere near the bank at that moment.

Bells started ringing outside as the police finally arrived, sounding much like the alarm that had only been shut of several minutes ago. This meant the gang of robbers were even more annoyed than they would have otherwise been. But despite this, a wave of relief fell over the hostages as rescue seemed more immanent. However, if they were expecting the police to simply barge in and take them down, they were sorely mistaken. Not only was the door locked, but so was every other door that could lead to the outside world. That had been Three and Four’s first job once they got in. And the police weren’t inclined to try anyway. At least not yet. With so many hostages, the idea of barging in was completely out of the question. There’d be way too many casualties and most likely would give the crime the status of a massacre.

No, no, no. They would never let that happen. Instead, they had set up outside, while trying to make contact with the gang inside. Several police officers had gathered around a nearby phone box, and were trying to call one of the phones inside the bank. However, they weren’t having much luck. The rest were trying to deal with the crowd that had gathered, wishing to see some sort of spectacle. So, with many of them being preoccupied, it only left a few more superior officers to figure out how to get inside. As a result, much of their time was spent standing around and actually doing very little. But within the bank, two people were doing quite a lot.

Jack and Jane had been dashing all over the building, searching for the tunnel that the robbers had supposedly hidden somewhere. Like the police, however, they also weren’t having much luck. They knew, aswell, that if they were taking too long to find out the situation with the police and report back to One, there’d be hell to pay. So they were beginning to grow quite frantic in their need to escape.

“What if we just hide somewhere? This place is huge! They wouldn’t be able to get us then, and we can just wait this whole thing out.” Jack had suggested after finding another cleaning cupboard void of any tunnel.

“But if they do find us, they’ll be furious. They’ve been so adamant about keeping us on a tight leash, I doubt they won’t try looking.”

The two kept on running, until they heard a voice somewhere in the distance, echoing around the large stone walls.

“Watch it! If you try scurrying off again, I won’t hesitate in blowing your brains out!” They couldn’t make out much of the response, other than the fact that they were probably crying. But even then, that was only because they heard another voice saying,

“Quit blubbering! I’m sick of all this noise. Between you and those bloody coppers, I’m going to lose it. Maybe picking a few of you off will teach you to keep your mouths shut.”

After being around him for so long, Jane was able to pick out Six’s voice, though she couldn’t say who the first man was. Either way, if Six wasn’t looking around anymore, it meant that Four and Six must have finished their sweep of the bank already. Considering it had only taken about ten minutes, it was a sensible guess to say they mustn’t have found much. But that also made them realise that they probably had Mr Dawes Jr already too. And if that was the case, it probably wouldn’t be long before this all came to an end. The thought almost had Jane suggesting they go back to One and carry on with his plan. But that was before she saw what was going on.

Upon reaching the top of the stairs to the foyer, the children peeked around the pillar and were just about able to see the commotion down below. It seemed that it was Ten who had made the original threat. He was standing with Six who was still grumbling about having so many hostages. On the floor, they could see the direction of their frustration was actually a young woman who was terrified out of her wits, looking like she may burst into tears where she sat. A man was trying to calm her down (though they couldn’t see his face, as he was sitting side on and had his head turned completely away from the stairs), and although Ten and Six had been complaining about the noise, they seemed to be allowing it, believing it would probably work better than if they kept threatening her.

Careful not to be noticed, Jack and Jane couldn’t help but look through the crowd to see if anything awful had happened. She recognised several of the bankers, such as Mr Hooksmith and Mr Cartwright, but most seemed to be just members of the public. It certainly didn’t look like anyone had been hurt yet. There was no blood, but they all looked rather shaken up by the whole situation, and a layer of dust had coated certain parts of the room from when they’d been shooting at the ceiling earlier. It seemed that they’d taken a few shots at some of the other pillars too, based on the chips and bullet holes dotted around the place.

But soon enough, all that became secondary. As the man, whom Jane hadn’t been able to identify, finally turned his head back to Six, allowing Jane to see his face for the first time. And as soon as she did, she wished she hadn’t. The colour drained from her face as the whole world was drowned out, her voice unable to raise to more than a whisper,

“Father!”


	7. Fight Or Flight?

A million different things can happen when one is in a stressful situation. But even though they all have differences between them, they all fall into the fight or flight categories. You can either try to run and ignore the situation, or you can tackle it head on and attempt to overcome it. Of course, however, certain reactions are not recommended for every situation. Especially in a situation where you could easily be overpowered if you step out of line. So when Jane saw her father and attempted to fight, Jack (who was rather more inclined to choose flight, considering he had no family at the bank to worry about) was forced to grab her by the back of her dress and drag her back around the corner, where they were out of sight.

“Jane! What are you doing? We’ll get caught!” Jack hissed, trying to keep himself from getting too loud. They were only around the corner at the top of the stairs, so in such an echoey building, their voices could easily carry if they weren’t careful.

“My father’s down there!” She started, “We have to do something.”

“No! There’s 6 men down there with guns, and we’re a couple of kids. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to die yet. We need to leave.” He finished his thoughts with a tug on her arm, already looking back down the corridor to figure out somewhere to go next.

“If we can’t find a way out, we can hide in one of the offices until all this is over. Then if One or someone finds us, we can say we were trapped by someone else, so they won’t get mad at us.” Jane, however, was not listening to Jack’s idea. She poked her head out to look down into the foyer again. It was definitely her father. At that moment, he was even trying to tell off Six for scaring the woman he was sitting with. He wasn’t getting through to him, but her father wasn’t afraid, and looked familiarly cross. The kind of cross she had grown accustomed to before Mary Poppins visited. She couldn’t help but wonder if maybe her father would attempt to fight the men threatening him. He certainly knew how to. But he was a very sensible man, and she soon decided that he wouldn’t take such a risk. At least not yet. Maybe if they started some chaos, he’d be able to finish the job…

“Maybe we can make a distraction.” She wondered out loud, “The hostages could attack.”

“Jane. Jane!” Jack tried to get her to turn back to him, but she wouldn’t move. “Jane, they have guns. If anyone tries to cause trouble, they’ll shoot them. He’ll be fine on his own down there, its us who’re in trouble. We need to get out of here!” However, this time when Jack attempted to tug on her sleeve, she did turn back, only this time, she wasn’t looking as friendly as she had all day.

“I’m not leaving him.” Her words were strict, snappy and she couldn’t help but feel like she was imitating Mary Poppins in her formality. “We got your stupid book! We’re not just going to leave my father without even trying to help!” She may have felt shame for snapping on any other day, but right now, she truly didn’t care. If Jack wanted to abandon her family to get hurt, then she was prepared to abandon him. No one was going to come between her and her father. Not even if it’s a group of criminals with guns. She’d rather die than lose him.

“Jane, this is different, though.” He pleaded, “I only suggested to those guys that we came along so that they wouldn’t kill us! If we had the chance to leave, I would have forgotten all about that dumb book. But we have a chance now to get out of this alive. We need to take it, or else we won’t get another!”

“Why do you think I’d ever leave my dad alone down there?! Are you crazy?! How do you not understand how important this is? I’m not going to let him get hurt! Maybe you’d understand if your parents were down there.”

“Well they’re not, and if you go down there, you’ll wind up just like your dad. We need to get out of here. And if you’re not coming, then I’ll go on my own.”

“What is wrong with you?!” Jane almost screamed at him. Almost. But with all her composure, she managed to keep quiet. She wanted nothing more than to wring somebody’s neck and Jack was turning out to be the perfect candidate. How could he not understand this? This wasn’t just anyone. It wasn’t as if she wanted to rescue all the hostages, of course she knew that that was a bad idea. But this was her father. It was different. How was she meant to go on if he was killed because she was too scared to do anything even though she could? Jane wasn’t quick to anger, but she could feel herself losing it. Clenching her fists and feeling her jaw tense, she resisted the urge to go off the deep end and simply huffed, pushing a loose piece of hair out of her face and behind her ear.

“I know if your parents were down there, you’d expect me to come do something crazy to save them. It’s not fair. You would do something to save them, wouldn’t you?! Or would you just want to abandon them like you’re trying to abandon me?!” There was a moment of silence where Jack’s face was unreadable. She could only tell from the brief moment where his eyes widened that he was shocked, but otherwise he was blank. It took a second before his eyes watered and he sighed, no longer able to make eye contact. But once he managed to compose himself again, his mouth pulling into a hard line, preventing any more emotion from overwhelming him, he finally spoke again,

“My parents are gone. And trying to fight it only made things worse.” He choked up a bit as Jane still stood her ground, “For God’s sake Jane! You’re my only friend, I don’t want to lose you too!” He was scared. No, terrified. There was no doubt about it. He’d never been the bravest kid, and he’d certainly never saved someone. But he was prepared to leave the bank alone if it meant survival. He just wished Jane would see some sense and come with him. He would go alone if he had to, because he certainly didn’t want to. His pleading eyes did very little to help. Jane’s only softened for a brief moment, before she straightened up again, giving him a steely glare.

“Then you should know exactly why I’m doing this.” He stared in horror. This couldn’t actually be real. She was going to get killed if she ran in there alone. Why was she trying to make their day worse? Her father would be safe if they left him unless he caused trouble. Jane going in there specifically to cause trouble would just make them kill him. He couldn’t support that. He wouldn’t. And as much as it pained him to leave his only friend in years, there was no way he could follow.

“Fine. I’m getting out of here.” He didn’t wait for an answer. He was tired of the argument already, and he knew he’d only get upset if he tried to drag it out any longer. Jane seemed happy enough with this, either that or she didn’t really care. Whichever was the case, she didn’t follow, and she didn’t try calling out to him. So, Jack went back down the corridor and headed down a flight of stairs, looking for any door that could lead outside.

He wouldn’t follow her. He couldn’t. He’d be killed. He didn’t want to see anyone get killed. And that would certainly happen if he helped her. He needed to get out. Maybe if he could find the way out, he could get some help to come in. Then he could do something to help Jane’s father, without endangering them all. He’d have to be quick. He had no time to mope around over one little argument. They were both terrified and just wanted everyone to get out safely. No matter how badly we wanted to burst into tears, it wasn’t fair to blame her. She was right. Even though he wasn’t brave enough to admit it out loud. But he would have done the exact same thing if he was in her position. Damn it. If he hadn’t lost that stupid book, none of this would have happened.

The bank was eerily quiet the further he got from the foyer. It was the only thing he could really focus on other than the fact he was now walking through it all alone. He’d spent enough of his life alone already, so it shouldn’t have felt any different, but he couldn’t help but wish his parents were still around to look after him, at least while he was so lost.

And he was lost. He hadn’t been to the bank much at all in his life. He vaguely remembered having to go with his father once, years ago. But he usually didn’t take him. He’d always been worried about taking a child into such an imposing establishment. And without Jane or any of the criminals there to take the lead, he didn’t know where to go. He wandered for several minutes, knowing he was at least on the ground floor, and that there really should be a fire exit somewhere. And even if it was locked, One was with the vault and Four was probably there too by now, Two and Three were getting Dawes (whom he assumed would be in his office, which Jack imagined would be up a floor or two, rather than on the ground floor, so it didn’t seem likely that he’d run into them), and everyone else was in the foyer with the hostages. So, it wasn’t like there was anyone guarding the other doors. So long as he stayed on the ground floor and away from the foyer, he’d be fine. And if he could find a fire exit, he would have plenty of time to undo whatever they’d done to lock it before anyone would find him.

He decided the smartest thing to do was to just pick a direction and walk that way without turning any other way. He’d get to the edge of the building eventually and find some kind of door. So, he did just that. He wanted to run, but feared the sound of his footsteps would echo far too loudly around the empty halls and someone would surely come to investigate. So instead, he just stuck to walking quickly. Adjusting the book under his jacket, he tried to look confident. He didn’t want to look suspicious if any of the thugs did happen to come round to that part of the bank. He would pretend to be looking for them to ask what was happening with the police, to report back to One, as he still didn’t actually know what was happening on that front, and that’s what he was supposed to finding out, anyway.

He had no idea that the police had managed to call inside the bank.

Outside in the phone box, the three officers that were still crowding around and feeding numbers to the fourth man inside had finally had some success. The bank had several phones all over the place, for quick communication with secretaries, cleaners and other staff members, no matter where they were. The police had managed to get ahold of the list of numbers for them from a lucky banker who was supposed to be having a day off, but had been walking by when he saw all the commotion. He just so happened to have the list of numbers and offered them to the police to use, instead of leaving them to wait for someone more senior to supply them. The only problem was that they didn’t know which number belonged to which phone, so they had simply been working their way down the list, completely unsure which one, if any, would be answered.

It was the 9th number they had tried. It rang three times, before they finally got an answer. And it was just the person they wanted to hear from. Sitting down underground, outside the vault, was One, grumbling to himself about how long everything was taking. The children should have been back by now, surely. Four was back! So, where were they? Looking at his watch, despite it being five minutes behind, he could still see just how long it had been. It shouldn’t have taken more than five minutes to find out if the police had arrived yet, but here they were. He had just been about to ask Four to go find them when the phone started ringing.

For a brief moment, he actually thought the alarm had started up again. But he quickly realised it was nowhere near as loud as that. The vault was at the end of a vey small corridor that jutted off from a much longer one leading to various staff rooms and storage areas. So, seeing no source to the incessant noise, he poked his head out into the main corridor and spotted a phone on the wall.

“Who the hell would be calling down here?” One looked at Four, who only shrugged, scratching the back of his head. For a moment, he wondered if he should just leave it to ring, but curiosity got the better of him. He picked up the receiver, trying to take out all the confusion from his voice, as he growled,

“Who is this and the what the hell do you want?”


	8. Schemes

You should know that Winifred Banks is a brave woman. That would come as no surprise to anyone who knew her. Afterall, she was one of the women who, in protest, threw eggs at the Prime Minister. Only, to better get her point across, hers were hard boiled. She was never put off by the fact that a fight against the patriarchy would be an all-out war. If anything, that seemed to have spurred her on even more. Yes, she had always been quite a feisty woman. But that never meant she was a violent or cold person. Quite the opposite. Her passion to fight back seemed to be something she found great pleasure in, and she was ecstatic that she could make a difference for her own family. Afterall, family comes first.

So, she didn’t think twice about calling home as soon as she heard about there supposedly being trouble at the bank. She was quite sure that George wasn’t working that day, but it couldn’t hurt to check and maybe offer some comfort for the trouble his colleagues would be facing. She abandoned her protest in favour of the nearest phone box, and quickly called home. She was right that he wasn’t working, but her heart shattered when Ellen said he had gone to the bank to pick up some files and hadn’t yet returned. She slammed the phone down without another word (much to the dismay of her disgruntled housekeeper, who was left confused as to what all the fuss was about) and marched out to the main road to get a taxi.

It was a two-minute wait for the taxi and a further twenty-minute drive from her protest at Downing Street to the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank, where she quickly joined the growing crowd of concerned onlookers and nosey parkers. She decided not to trouble the police for information, as they looked rather busy, and while she may have deliberately annoyed them at one of her rallies, she didn’t exactly want to upset them in a life or death situation. So, she instead took to shifting through rows of the crowd, systematically searching for her husband, in the hopes that he wasn’t inside, but was watching the commotion. Afterall, it was more likely that he had left before the robbery started or arrived afterward, than to have made it inside at such a specific time. But despite this, she soon realised that her fears were true. And as she was consumed with the reality of her situation, she could have vomited.

It was only then that she saw several officers racing towards a phone box, one of them appearing to be the leader of the whole debacle. This man was Superintendent Brewer, a rather frightening man who had once been a formidable military general before resigning after the Second Boer War and turning to the police. At 6’6”, he towered over his men and expected nothing but their best. He wore his uniform with pride, keeping it so neat you’d think it was brand new, with his greying hair and handlebar moustache equally well kept. He marched to the phone box, taking the receiver just in time to hear the crook on the other end of the line repeating his question,

“Who is this?”

“Superintendent Brewer, and who might I be speaking to?”

“The man who’s about to blow this bank to hell if I don’t get my money soon!” One was practically screaming into the phone, as he was- being a perfectionist- clearly tired of things going even slightly wrong. But despite this psychotic ranting, Brewer didn’t seem particularly bothered, merely raising an eyebrow like he was rather unimpressed by the crook’s unprofessionalism.

“Well, that’s all well and good, but right now I’d rather focus on you releasing hostages.” There was a pause.

“No.” The line went dead after this growled response. Brewer was hardly surprised, calmly returning the phone to another officer, who cursed and attempted to redial the number, but received no answer. He knew it was too good to be true. Of course, the crooks weren’t even going to talk to them. Why would they, they had access to everything they wanted in that bank. The hostages were merely to keep the police away for long enough while they took it. Winifred watched him walking back to his small congregation of officers, all the while wondering what she could do to help. There had to be something. She’d rather die than let her husband get hurt. Afterall, the whole reason she was a suffragette was because she believed the men were rather stupid.

And Winifred wasn’t the only one trying to come up with a plan. Deep below the Bank, One was starting to lose it. The kids didn’t look like they would be coming back any time soon, he still had no idea what was going on with Dawes, and to top it all off, now he had the pigs to deal with. Sulking by the vault, he grumbled to himself, while Four did his best to ignore his boss.

“Where the hell are they?” He eventually asked.

“Who?”

“Anyone!” One spat, kicking a wall and leaving a muddy mark on the pristine white surface. “The kids! Two and Three! Dawes! The police! They’re all supposed to be coming to us, but nobody’s even trying. I swear to God, if we fail, I’ll-”

“Sir.” The two thugs looked up to see Two and Three standing in the doorway, looking rather sheepish, and, as One couldn’t help but notice, they didn’t have Dawes.

“Why are you here? Where is Dawes?!” The two stood silently for a moment, looking between one another as they had a silent argument over who should tell him. In the end, Two lost. Being the most superior of the two, and One’s right hand man, it fell on him to deliver the news.

“He’s not here.” There was silence.

“What do you mean?”

“We went to his office, but he wasn’t there. He had a reminder on his desk to go to a doctor’s appointment today.” One was beet red, and if he could without breaking his knuckles, he would have punched right the way through the stone wall. He waited all this time for nothing, and all to be left with no other option but to blow open the vault now that the police were prepared for the trouble. It would have been much easier to have done that straight away before anyone could be ready and come after them. They’d wasted so much time! Wait…

“How did it take so long just to get to the office and back?”

“Well that’s the thing, we found someone on the way back.” Three grinned, dragging out his hostage from round the corner to show One, and of course, it was none other than Jack.

“He looked to be trying to escape. Said he needed to find out what was happening with the cops for you, but we thought it seemed strange that he was on the opposite side of the bank to any of us.”

Jack squirmed in the grip of Three, who was holding him by the back of the collar a little too tightly, almost cutting off the airflow. He thought he’d get away with his escape, but he hadn’t been quite as prepared as he thought to actually talk with them. And in a blind moment of panic, he had tried to run, proving his guilt to them.

One marched toward him, towering over the boy with a nasty grin, that appeared to be all he had left to hold himself back from snapping and splitting his head open. He stared at Jack, who was no longer bothering to hide the fact that he was terrified, shaking and staring up at him with big brown eyes blown wide.

“Eleven,” He asked, with a sinister calm tone, “were you trying to escape?” Jack could barely find the courage to speak, not wanting to incur the same wrath he had overheard moments before.

“I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t ask if you were sorry.” He hissed, patience thinning, “I asked if you were trying to escape. So?” Jack nodded.

One sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He started taking deep breaths through his nose and out his mouth, leaving the rest of the group to stand around, watching and waiting for their next orders. Once he’d composed himself again, he continued,

“Right. So answer me this. Where’s the girl?”

Jack wasn’t sure what to say. Because he honestly didn’t know. And even if he said where he’d last seen her, the thugs would run over there and find she’d already gone. Jane wasn’t stupid. She knew she couldn’t stand around in an open corridor while she figured out her plan. That’s why she’d hidden inside an office that happened to be unlocked. She wasn’t sure who it belonged to, as the owner wasn’t important enough to have been granted a nameplate at their desk. But that also meant that their files were not given a separate room to be stored in. So, Jane began to root through the shelves of books and folders, in an attempt to find anything that could be of use, something that could tell her about the layout of the bank. Thankfully, there were plenty of old folders containing information about building work over the past few years, as the office owner played a part in organising the financing of such ventures, and as a result, there were a few floorplans from over the years.

Sifting through the papers, she tried desperately to find any sort of exit. She needed to sneak her father away from the other hostages, but it would be no use if she didn’t know where to go afterwards.

She took note of the position of the vault, and the doors she’d already come across that were definitely locked. Then she crossed off the front door, for obvious reasons, and some of the other doors that she had specifically heard being mentioned back when One had been running through the plan. But as she went through, there seemed to be nothing else left. That is of course, until she came across a slightly older map that had already been written on. There was a line drawn in red from one of the break rooms down in the upper basement, a whole floor away from the vault and on the other side of the bank. That’s when she remembered what they’d said: the cleaner’s break room, in the third cupboard. It was the tunnel they were using to escape. From the looks of the plans, it was a tunnel that someone else had dug in an attempt to break in over 50 years ago. But they were obviously discovered before they could finish. They must have not filled in the hole very well if it was able to be uncovered like this again. And she could most likely blame that on their informant.

But that didn’t matter right now. Now she needed to figure out how to get her father away from the other hostages. She briefly considered just announcing her presence, knowing that her father would do all sorts of risky things to get her to safety, even following her to crawl through a tunnel underground. But while that would encourage her father to follow, it would also encourage the gang to follow aswell. She’d have to be sneakier than that.

So she also considered trying to tell the gang in the foyer that One wanted them. But that would only get a few of them to leave (because there was absolutely no way she’d be able to convince them all to leave the hostages unattended) and it would mean showing off the fact that she was working with them in front of her father. And she really didn’t like the idea of that. Yes, her father was much nicer nowadays, but doing something as crazy as that would mean signing a death warrant with any parent.

No, if she was going to do this, she needed a distraction that wasn’t herself. Anything else would be better. Maybe if she could get someone inside to cause trouble…

But while Jane racked her head for ideas, deep below the ground, the distraction that she didn’t know she needed, was already about to start.

“You know what we have to do.” One stated.

“Ready the bomb.”


	9. Rue The Day

Under several hundred tonnes of concrete, under several floors of stone, the last resort was finally being resorted to. One would much rather have avoided blowing a hole in the bank, but he had no choice. He’d put too much work into this to not get anything back. He was going to be rich. This heist would go down in history. And he’d get away scot free. He was sure of it.

Two, Three and Four scrambled to get the explosives prepared while their boss watched. He had plenty of plans for the money, and once they got to France, he fully intended to continue his infamous career with things other than just banks. He had initially though of taking the Mona Lisa next, but someone had already gotten to that. He’d find something else for sure, however. He’d planned where he’d live and had a woman over there that he was ready to marry as soon as they were united. Everything would be perfect. All they had to do was get the vault open, and he was prepared to do anything. Anything.

Jack had been somewhat ignored in the corner, left to sit and watch the whole spectacle unfold. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do next. He wasn’t even sure what had happened to Jane. Had she been caught? Had she escaped? Or was she still running around doing God only knows what? Jack shuddered at the thought of them finding her too. He didn’t exactly want to think about what One would be prepared to do as punishment. And what about himself? He tried not to think about it too much because the thought alone terrified him, but if One was happy to blow a hole in the vault, would in really be a stretch to think he’d take a rifle and do the same thing to him?

Eventually, it became clear that Jack wasn’t the only one considering this, as Three looked up and asked,

“What do we do with him?” One turned to Jack, eyeing him suspiciously, as if the whole time since he’d been brought down, he’d been plotting his escape.

“Well, when we blow this thing open, I imagine the cops’ll be keen to get in. So we might need a hostage to remind em who they’re dealing with.” Jack shuddered at the words.

“In fact… Two, chuck us your knife.”

Unaware of any new danger, Jane crept out of the office and headed out to figure out a distraction. She still wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she figured she needed to get a look around the place to figure something out. She got about halfway down the corridor when she came across a secretary desk outside one of the offices, with a phone sat on it. Like with all the phones in the bank, there were several buttons used to call specific places around the bank, for quicker contact. So someone in an office could contact the secretary outside while only needing to press a single button. But more importantly, Jane could set the phone to ring the front desk and distract the thugs.

She picked up the phone and selected the option for the front desk downstairs, and low and behold, the phone happened to be only several feet away from where Five and Ten were standing, and they were already rather annoyed. You see, when the police started phoning around the bank, they simply went through a list of numbers that had been ordered by room. So the phones in the foyer were all one after the other on the list, and there was a phone at the main help desk, along with one for every single teller at every single station. So after having nearly 30 different phones ringing one after the other, the gunmen were all rather fed up with the noise. All it took was for Jane’s single call to echo loudly through the silence before Ten lost it.

“SHUT UP!” Spinning around in a blind rage, he emptied an entire cartridge of bullets into the phone, silencing it at once.

“What the hell is wrong with you!” Five hissed, marching up to his inferior with a much more professional rage. “If the cops start thinking you’re killing em, then they’ll come barging in guns blazing, you stupid git!” Ten huffed and turned away to sulk, and while Five may have wanted to reprimand him and remind him who he’s dealing with, he was more focused on listening for the police. He couldn’t hear anything, but they’d never been quiet in the first place, there was a whole crowd out there for sure. But it didn’t sound like people had taken too much notice of the gunshots, or there would probably be more panic. Still, that didn’t mean they weren’t coming in, it just meant they weren’t afraid of them, which only made him wonder why.

Outside, they obviously had heard the gunshots. It would be impossible not to. But most had expected something like that to happen soon enough, so the police were relatively calm about the whole situation, and the onlookers who may have panicked at such a noise, had already left, feeling much too faint hearted for all this excitement. Brewer’s eyes had widened for a fraction of a second, before he regained his composure, muttering away to himself about this and that.

Turning to another senior member of his team, he commanded in a quick, firm tone,

“I want your team ready to go in there. We’ve waited too long already. I don’t care what you do to these criminals, just get those hostages out alive.” The officer nodded and headed back to his men to organise the infiltration. They had no idea where the hostages were, but they assumed they were being held in the main lobby, since that’s where they heard the gunshots. They didn’t know exactly how many there were either, but again, they assumed there’d be quite a lot. The place would have been full of staff, cleaners and members of the public before it was taken over by (and they were certain of this, because it couldn’t otherwise be possible) the multiple crooks. All they needed to do was get in through an unguarded door and catch them by surprise.

They had just about organised themselves and were about to head around the back when Two started counting. The explosives were ready, and everyone had hidden a safe distance down the corridor. This was it. Time to become the most infamous men of the century.

“Five.”

“Four.”

“Three.”

“Two.”

“One.”

“Zero.”

The word barely passed his lips before the bomb detonated. It was as though a fist of orange flame had decided to punch its way out into the corridor. Metal was fractured and burst as smoke and fire rushed out. Thousands of pieces of steel showered down in a deadly rainfall, skidding across their skin and hitting the floor. A huge bite had been taken out of the wall, nevermind just the door. It was hard to believe it had done so much damage. But the thugs only knew half of the story.

Upstairs, the explosion had been muffled, but was no less audible. However, while the hostages were rather concerned at the sudden rumble erupting from beneath them, it was only as scary as thunder. They finally started to panic when dust started to fall from the ceiling. The whole building had shook like an earthquake which had caused enough panic, but when the floor started to crack, there wasn’t much that could be done to stop the hostages from getting up and running, doing their best to get away from the cracks at least, and at best, out of the bank entirely.

George took the opportunity to run as soon as people started to panic. With everyone running every which way, he was quite sure nobody saw him leave specifically, but he knew they’d be hunting him and everyone else down. He had to be quick if he wanted to escape. He could already hear them coming. Already feel his heart pounding. Already hear them shooting.

Outside, the officers stood stock still as the faint explosion echoed from the building. For a second, it seemed the whole world went silent as everyone realised what had happened and that this wasn’t all some awful nightmare. Then, a few moments later, came the screaming. Terror. Pure terror. And gunshots.

One.

Two.

Three.

Brewer tried to ignore the way even the most strong hearted veterans of his team seemed to shudder at the wailing as he fought with his professionalism and humanity. He wanted to feel sorry for them. He wanted to say a little prayer that they would survive. But he knew if he started to get emotional, they were bound to fail. With a sharp turn, he looked to the other officers, armed and ready to head inside.

“Well, what are you waiting for? GO!”

“NOBODY’S GOING FUCKING ANYWHERE!”

All eyes turned to the roof. There was a man standing there, dragging someone with him. He looked psychotic, having just been down in the basement with the bomb. He was covered in dust and out of breath from his run to the roof, but as the police would quickly notice, he wasn’t nearly as bad as the frightened hostage he’d brought with him.

Jack was bleeding, having been hit by several pieces of shrapnel from the explosion. Thankfully, it was nothing too serious, but the rest of the thugs had covered him in blood from their own wound to make him look even worse, and he was shaken up enough to pull off the whole look. The small boy had done everything he could to fight back as One dragged him up several flights of stairs to reach the roof, but he’d been unable to free himself. And now he stood with One’s arm wrapped around his neck much too tight and a knife hovering at his side.

“IF ANYONE TRIES COMING IN HERE, THE KID GETS IT.” One screamed, punctuating his threat with a sudden jerk to his captive.

The superintendent halted the other officers with a simple hand gesture, never once taking his eyes off the situation. He could tell the man was mentally unstable, but he had no idea that this was the leader of the gang. He tried to assess the state of the boy from where he stood, but with such a distance between them, it was quite hard to tell exactly what they’d done to him. All he could really see was that he was covered in a lot of red. And that definitely wasn’t a good sign. If they didn’t comply, they really would kill him.

“STAY BACK!” It was at his point that Brewer was supplied with a megaphone, finally allowing him to call up to the guy.

“We won’t come any closer. Just let the boy go!”

“NO! THE MINUTE I DO THAT, YOU’LL SHOOT ME!”

“We won’t. Just let him go and we can work all this out. You don’t have to hurt him, or anyone else.”

One looked around at the crowd. There had to be about one hundred officers hanging around. And that was just at the front of the building. He could only guess how many could be hiding elsewhere. Then there was a crowd of random people who happened to be walking by, all gawking at him. If he killed this kid, there’d be plenty of people to see and frighten into submission. The police would be overwhelmed by the public. They would never get inside. He could easily run back to the vault in time to grab the money with the others and get to the tunnel. He just needed to give them enough time to clear out the vault. Tightening his hold on Jack, he shouted again, ignoring the boy clawing at his arms to be freed.

“YES I DO! OTHERWISZE YOU’LL COME BARGING IN HERE LIKE YOU OWN THE PLACE. YOU’LL KILL OR ARREST US. YOU WON’T WIN! YOU WONT WIN!” His screaming was destroying his throat, making his threat sound hoarse but more deranged as he fought to raise his voice even more, deafening the youth in his arms

Jack choked out a whimper as he struggled in his grip, each time he tightened his arm making it harder and harder to breath. He wanted to cry for help, but he couldn’t even get enough of a breath to form the word. His heart pounded so hard he could hear it thundering in his head, almost enough to drown out all the yelling, while his tears blinded his vision. He just wanted to get away and go home. But the constant reminder rattling around his brain that he didn’t have one, only made him feel even more hopeless.

He could tell One was getting annoyed by his squirming, so when One spotted an officer sneakily reach for his gun, he flew off the rails once again.

“YOU BASTARDS! YOU THINK YOU CAN KILL ME?! ITS TIME YOU LEARNT YOUR PLACE!!”

He didn’t care anymore. He’d gotten all the time he could. They’d rue the day they tried to stop him. They’d rue the day. With a swift and sudden motion, he drew back the knife and with all the force he could physically muster, plunged the blade into Jack’s side.

They’d rue the day.

They’d rue the day.


	10. Swimming

Sometimes you don’t know what to say. Nobody had ever heard such a sound. Not even he had, and he’d been hurt pretty badly before. This was completely new. The scream ripped through the sky, loud enough to frighten everyone within a mile of the bank. Pain couldn’t even begin to cover the emotion dripping from such a cry. The world seemed to close in on the boy as his face twisted in agony, as he writhed to get away from the blade, and as he cried when his movements only served to bury the blade even deeper. Jack was dropped to the ground with a thud, and it took everything in him to hold on and avoid slipping from the roof. There were far too many sounds going on by that point: One was laughing, the crowd was screaming, policemen were shouting and he was pretty sure that he was making some ungodly noise too. But in all the chaos, he could hardly tell.

He had to do something. Anything. And after several seconds of pondering, he had an idea. But he had to wait.

One was slowly falling further and further into madness. Eyes wild as he screamed blue murder and god only knows what else. Jack had never heard some of those words before and he doubted anyone else had either. His shouting and rambling had slowly become far too fast and jumbled to make out between his psychotic laughter that was enough to have him doubling over in utter delight. The man was completely unintelligible as he flailed around in some sort of celebration that Jack couldn’t understand. What was he even proud of?

He stepped forward, ignoring his body to stand in front of him. Good. Play dead. All it took was careful movements. Slow enough that nobody would notice. Not One, not the police. Nobody. If he stayed low, the crowd wouldn’t see him from down below, and if he was quiet, one wouldn’t turn around.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he stood up. Good, he hadn’t noticed. Nor did he notice when Jack pulled the blade from his side, or how it was void of any blood stains. Because, the thing is, One completely forgot about the very reason Jack had gone to the bank with him. And his book had made for one hell of a shield.

Surging forward, Jack plunged the blade into his back, and with all his might, shoved forward. One was too busy celebrating to brace himself, and as soon as the blade hit his spine, his legs gave out completely. There was nothing he could do to stop himself from slipping, or halting the cry that erupted from his throat as he plummeted to the ground, smashing into the concrete and shattering his bones. His cry had lasted for several seconds until it was suddenly cut off with a thump. Then the world was filled with deafening silence. A silence that overpowered to wind, the fear, and the general city buzz. It surrounded him completely and lasted unbearably long.

Had Jack been brave enough to look at what he’d done, he would have seen the crowd rush backwards as he fell and surge forward like tides when he landed. Several officers dived onto the man, expecting a fight, but it was merely wishful thinking. Of course he was dead.

All eyes turned to the roof. They’d all seen what happened. Surely there was only a dead child up there. It couldn’t be possible. Jack could hardly believe it himself. Poking his head out for just a second was enough to make him sick. Lying face down on the pavement, One’s head had split right open, blood surging from the wound in powerful rivulets, painting the street red. One arm had landed awkwardly beneath him, causing the bone to snap and pierce through the skin like skewers, leaving it pointing outwards at his side. His whole body had landed like a rag doll, discarded by a child who’d had enough. And Jack really had had enough, but did he really just do that?

The crowd didn’t seem to have spotted him, but he’d never felt more exposed. The quickening of his breaths were beginning to make him choke, only serving to panic his poor heart further, which was already spasming and thrashing in his chest. Was he a murderer now?!

He bolted before another thought could catch him, racing away from the judgements that were hunting him down. Gasping breaths wrenched their way from his aching chest as he tried desperately to sprint down the stairs without tripping. But in the wake of his panic, his foot did slip, and suddenly he was tumbling down. And holy hell, did it hurt. Every single step seemed to embed itself into his ribs as he rolled, punching air out with each hit, until he could’ve sworn there was nothing left. He could’ve sworn that his book (which was still slotted under his vest despite having been stabbed through) was cutting into his skin at the sharp sides of the cover with each hit (god, if he made it out of this, the librarian was really going to kill him) before finally reaching a turn in the staircase, and hitting a wall at full speed.

Spinning. Why was everything still spinning? His eyes seemed to still be rolling around in his head even though he could’ve sworn he wasn’t falling anymore. But even despite this, he could still see how badly he’d been hurt. Afterall, the blood was smeared on the wall. But everything felt sort of fuzzy, like he was swimming in a strange world of his own and couldn’t quite feel any of the pain that he should definitely be feeling, while still being aware of it, somehow. It was an odd sensation. He figured he must’ve gone mad. Was this what One felt?

An image flashed through his head the moment he thought of him. A bloody body lying on his back. Eyes wide open. Staring. Nevermind that One had actually landed face down, Jack’s own guilt was providing more than enough to convince him otherwise. The way his hand had twitched briefly before his last pitiful breath escaped his punctured lungs. The way the blood rushed from the side of his skull, where it seemed to have detonated, scattering bone fragments and brain matter everywhere. He’d never seen such a gruesome sight. And it was all his own doing.

Lying at the bottom of the stairs, he figured he probably looked a good deal like One. Maybe that’s what he deserved for killing him. But One was going to stab him! He had no choice!

Jack attempted to push the memory from his head and himself back up to his feet. But he failed at both. His mind decided to throw some rather unhelpful images of the corpse at him, making him suddenly feel extremely nauseous and slide back to the floor. He made no further attempt to stand, simply curling into a ball to hold his head, which he was starting to feel a lot more now. And it seriously hurt. However, he wasn’t aware of the tears running down his cheeks, as he quietly sobbed. This wasn’t meant to happen. He didn’t mean it. He was just scared. He had to get rid of him, or else he’d die! He didn’t want to kill him!!

He just had to.

He really had to.

But there was no way for him to do anything about it, now. It was far too late. The police were probably already scraping him off the pavement and getting ready to go in. And what would they do when they find him? Would they drag him to prison kicking and screaming. Would they lock him up and throw away the key? Would he ever see Jane again? He couldn’t let that happen! He couldn’t. He had to get away. Nobody could ever know what he’d done. But after failing to stand, he decided he’d run later. Right now, his eyes were feeling much too heavy to do anything else but sleep.

Hopefully it would be enough to stop everything from swimming in his head.


	11. This Could Be A Disaster

Winifred Banks had seen a lot in her time. But seeing a child getting stabbed and a man falling from the roof all within a single minute was something she had never come close to experiencing before. The poor boy wasn’t much older than her own two, and the thought alone was enough to make her sick. How could anyone do that to a child? Or anyone for that matter. She tried to keep the thoughts that flashed through her mind away. Thoughts that replaced that poor boy she had seen with Michael or Jane. The way ha had screamed and fallen. And oh god, that man! That evil, psychotic man. His crazed laughter followed by his hysterical flailing, all finishing with a sickening crunch as he landed on the floor, shattering things inside him that she thought could never be shattered. The blood had splattered from his head like an exploded tin of paint, causing the crowd to step back lest they’d be covered in the crimson mess.

Of course, the police had dived for the man as soon as he landed, but found his was killed on impact with the concrete. It was quite a drop after all. So, his body had been taken out of view of the crowd to be dealt with and identified, while Brewer tried to control his men once more and finally get them inside the bank. He sent one alone to run a quick lap around the place to find the best point of entry, and had come back to inform him that there was a fire exit around the back that they could use. Brewer had passed this information onto the rest of the team and sent them on their way.

It seemed Brewer was in a rather foul mood about the whole situation by now. Dealing with the corpse and knowing there was another on the roof and potentially more inside was clearly stressing him out. He hadn’t really expected anything when he was originally sent down here. These kinds of call outs were usually a false alarm. Afterall, the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank hadn’t been robbed since 1752 but had had a few call outs to suspected cases. Brewer certainly hadn’t expected anything like this. He certainly hadn’t expected any deaths.

He tried to collect his thoughts as he mindlessly scuffed his freshly polished shoe along the concrete pavement. This couldn’t possibly get any worse: potentially several deaths, an unknown number of offenders and an undoubtedly large number of hostages of all ages. He could already tell this was going to be a disaster.

“Whitehall, go debrief the medics, I fear they’re going to have their hands quite full soon.”

Had he known he was being watched, Brewer may have made a more professional attempt at his command. But alas, he had no clue. So, Winifred saw the exact moment that he went a deathly white, and how the sweat dripped down his forehead, passed his furrowed brow and to his tightly locked jaw. He knew today would be a massacre. And now, so did she.

Her heart skipped a beat at the sight. No, this couldn’t be happening. Not when her husband was in there. Not when their family’s friends were in there. She had to do something. Anything. Forget the fact that the superintendent’s grave expression had made her chest tighten and squeeze out quick shallow breaths, or the fact that every nerve in her body was screaming for her to run and find somewhere safe to wait until all this horrid business was over. Winifred fought everyday to make the world a better place for her family. What would be the point if she didn’t have a family anymore? No, she had to go in. There was no other choice.

Seeing the other officers heading round the back to go in, she knew she had to follow. It was crazy. She already knew that. And she knew she wasn’t trained for anything like this. But there was only a team of seven going in, and they knew the robbers had guns, so she wasn’t feeling hopeful, even though the officers were also armed.

She knew she’d be caught far too quickly if she followed directly after them, so she hid along the way, creeping behind them by several metres so they’d have no chance of seeing her. And once they had all entered the building, she waited for exactly 1 minute for them to get moving away from the door, before taking a deep breath and heading in after them.

The moment she was both waiting for and dreading finally arrived, as the seconds hand on her pocket watch finally made its way to twelve, gradually ebbing its way around the face. All the reasons not to do this come flooding in, as if her body chemistry just sent them a blanket invitation. She felt the soft panic that could grow or fade depending on what she decided to do next. It would have all faded if she backed away, but then she would have to go, knowing that she’d be leaving her own husband to be potentially killed without even trying to help him. It would grow if she let these thoughts swirl into a vortex of terror, eating its own tail. Or she could breathe slowly and let the thoughts leak into the ether and finally get on with the task at hand. Everything hinged on what she did next. It could never be undone.

The halls weren’t empty when she headed in, however. She could see the officers a little ways down the hall, creeping along and checking for criminals at turn. As a result, they’d only crept a small way down and left Winifred with no other option but to take the left turn next to the door, which she knew wouldn’t take her anywhere useful. Because she did actually know her way around the place. She’d visited the bank many times throughout her life to do her own business, and since George got the job, she had been visiting even more for all sorts of reasons. She had specifically gone out of her way to make sure that her fellow suffragettes didn’t cause any havoc at the bank, purely out of respect for her husband and his colleagues. He may not have always agreed with everything she did, but he had enough respect to let her do what she needed to do to get what she deserved. That’s why she had married in the first place. He may never chain himself to railings, but would quietly support the cause in his own way. Even if it was with just a quiet word with the higher ups to support the women for the sake of their business. Afterall, it got them the attention they needed.

But of course, equality was a long way off. But that was very handy for the moment. As nobody would expect a poor defenceless woman to be infiltrating a bank in such a way.

And she wasn’t the only “poor harmless girl” running around the place. On the other side of the bank, Jane was doing the same thing. After the hostages had tried to run, the gang had chased and started firing. Jane, not wanting to be shot, hid under the desk in a nearby office and waited for everything to calm down. She had hoped she’d see her father, but she hadn’t even reached the foyer when she heard the guns. And no matter how brave she liked to think she was, she wasn’t going to run towards that.

Once things had quietened down a bit, she finally left the office. She could hear more of a commotion outside the bank, but otherwise, things were fine again, now. She carefully padded down the hallway towards the foyer, in the hopes of seeing her father still running freely around the corridors. She couldn’t quite imagine what the explosion could’ve been at first, but after another minute, she realised One must have used his backup plan. She couldn’t help but wonder if Jack was alright. The explosion had left cracks all throughout the building, and had probably done worse than that closer to the vault, so she soon found herself worrying what could’ve happened to her friend. She hadn’t even seen him once since the argument and was starting to worry what could’ve happened to him if he’d been caught. They should’ve stayed together. This was a terrible idea.

Upon approaching the foyer, however, Jane was snapped out of her thoughts by more shouting. So, not wishing to be seen, she dived behind a pillar to watch the crowd in secret.

She could see Five ranting and raving at…

Her father!

Five stood over George with a powerful expression, clearly not happy with his escape attempt. She could see the victims of the gunshots she heard. Thankfully, though they were injured, they were just that, and blessedly alive But looking at her father, she couldn’t even see any injuries on the man. However, she could see them on Five. Most notably, a large, suspiciously fist-sized, red mark from where he had recently been hit, that would most likely form a rather nasty black eye. Blood also appeared to be gushing from his nose, and based on her father’s bloody fist, she could quite easily guess the culprit.

Her father wouldn’t hit someone unless they really deserved it. But Five didn’t seem to think it was warranted.

“You bastard!” He screamed, “Who do you think you are?!”

“Mr Banks.” Came the calm response of a man who clearly wasn’t bothered and had seen much more terrifying things in his life. His military experience was showing, but also his expectation to be treated as the high-class man that he was. He probably shouldn’t have been so rude to the man holding him hostage, but he certainly wasn’t scared of him already, and he had been sitting on the floor in his best dress pants for far too long to not be frustrated about it. So, while it wasn’t really a good idea, he was far too brave and sick of everything to not take a snarky tone with Five, who quite clearly didn’t appreciate it very much.

“Oh, so you’re a smart-ass, are you? Nobody likes a smart-ass! Especially ones who think they have the right to strike me! You should know your place.”

George scoffed at him,

“I’m quite sure that my place in society puts me above criminal scum like you.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Five just laughed. For several long seconds. And it was only when he stopped and allowed his face to fall to a complete deadpan that George felt afraid for the first time in his presence. He had had enough. First all the phone calls, then the bomb, the hostages running around and all that bloody commotion going on outside that was getting to be unbearably loud. And he was well and truly sick of it. He’d make them pay. They’d be sorry for making a mockery of him and then they would start to bloody behave! Grabbing George by the collar, he yanked him up to his feet, and despite some resistance, he managed to hold him still with sheer force of will. It was about time they started to take this seriously.

George’s eyes widened and he realised his mistake. Five wasn’t just an average crook looking to make quick cash. He was a cold, hardened criminal who had proven he was more than willing to use his weapon at any moment. And while he hadn’t killed anyone yet, George knew that he was happy to do so now. Because at that moment, before anyone could stop him, before George had the chance to run away or fight or to at least calm his racing heart. Five pulled out a gun and pointed it right at him.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”


	12. Crimson Drops

Time stopped.

You hear stories all your life about terrible things: war, crime, murder. But seeing a real gun is different. Seeing a real criminal is different. And seeing them pull that gun on your father is very VERY different. It’s the sort of thing you hear on the radio when they do the news. Or when your friend tells you what happened to their friend’s cousin’s uncle’s stepsister. It would never happen to you. Life is far too mundane for that. If you’re so lucky as to have interesting friends, then you might hear such stories from them, and excitement and drama skims close enough to you that you were almost there. It happens to everyone like that, to the point where you wonder who even experiences such things in person. So, it took a rather long time for Jane’s mind to catch up and realise that, yes, this was really, actually happening.

Five held the revolver only inches from his face, close enough for George to see every scuff, scratch and scrape that had marred its gleaming metal over the years. It looked a little more on the weighty side and he could already anticipate how cold the end of the barrel would be and how startlingly hot the bullet would be in comparison.

The not knowing was the worst part. Was this just a threat or did he really want to kill him? It was all so unreal. That’s why he probably hadn’t been so scared before. But they were actually here, invading his life and threatening his safety. He wanted to close his eyes. Close his eyes and never open them again. He didn’t want to have to stare at that face and let it be the last thing he ever got to see. Wasn’t your life supposed to flash before your eyes? Where were the memories? He tried to think of something. Anything. But his mind drew blank. Partly because he couldn’t choose a single memory to go out with and partly because his brain wouldn’t let him daydream in such a situation. But it didn’t matter. This was where his story ended.

Fear gripped his heart, almost crushing it and sending pangs of pain through his chest. And while he managed to supress the urge to cower entirely in front of the man, he couldn’t stop the sweat creeping down his forehead, or his rapid breaths that weren’t quite shallow enough to not shake his chest, where his heart beat like a bass drum. The tension gathered in his stomach, pulling taut until George was sure he was going to snap in half. And when Five pulled the trigger, he nearly did.

“Sorry mate. But I don’t need you all alive to get away with this.”

Click.

Bang?

There was no bang. He tried again.

Click.

Nothing.

“What the fuck is this?!” He flicked the case open and went completely white at what he saw: there were no bullets inside. This wasn’t possible! He hadn’t used his revolver all day, it was just the backup, and all the guns had been loaded before they even arrived. What the hell was going on?!

In the shadow of her pillar, Jane leant against the stone and heaved out a sigh of relief, her hand ghosting over the six bullets still sitting in her pocket.

Nice one.

“Dammit!” Five roared and threw his gun, not caring about where it landed, or about the small hands that scrambled to grab it when it slid to her side, and, instead, went to grab Nine’s gun, when someone else entered the foyer: Four. And he didn’t look happy.

“We need to get ready to scarper.” He began, startling most people in the room, as they’d been far too busy watching Five’s attempt at murder. “One’s dead and we don’t know where Eleven or Twelve are.” Five’s face fell. This couldn’t be happening. They spent so long planning this. How the hell did it all go so wrong?! How could One be dead?! Their plan was perfect. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. They were supposed to get through this together. THEY WERE A TEAM FOR GOD’S SAKE!

He took a breath to calm down. They could worry about his later. One was come back from the dead to kill them all himself if they screwed up even more by getting upset about him. He pushed everything down into the deepest, darkest depths of his heart and locked it away. They needed to get on with things, now.

“Shouldn’t we deal with these lot, then?” he asked through gritted teeth, waving Nine’s revolver nonchalantly at the hostages, despite his vicious intent.

“No. We can’t give the cops any more reason to try come in. We just need to get out and get out fast. Right now.”

“What about Eleven and Twelve? They made this whole thing so much harder.”

Four thought for a moment, before settling on a malicious grin and said, with a glint in his eye,

“Alright. Maybe a little revenge is ok.”

Jane’s heart almost stopped at the words, and when she peaked out, she was forced to dive back behind the pillar as Five turned her way.

“Perfect,” he said, eyeing her hiding place, “because I think I know where to look.” Creeping forward, the rest of the gang and hostages watched as Five reached out to the marble pillar, his bony hand flattening against the smooth surface and sliding along as he stepped around to see the other side. And as Jane’s heart stuttered, his nails scratched the stone, until finally he craned his neck around and whispered,

“Boo!”

But there was nobody there.

Jane was already running. She ran as soon as she had ducked out of view, and was already two corridors away from them. She didn’t know where she was going, but she had a gun and six bullets. Six chances. And right now, she wanted to find Jack. She didn’t know where he could be. But if they were looking for both of them, then he was in just as much trouble as she was. And if she was being chased away from her father, then she’d take the opportunity to be chased towards Jack, wherever he may be.

Dashing past several offices, she almost wanted to hide inside, but she figured that would be too obvious. Sure, they might have trouble finding which one she was in, but if she wanted to quickly open and shut those big heavy doors to get in, she was sure she’d give herself away. The shouting behind her was getting louder. They could probably hear her footsteps, and she certainly wasn’t going to be able to outrun them. Panting and scared, she looked for another option. The stairs! While the main staircases were much more open and grand, there were several others around the bank for the cleaners, and people not meant to be seen by the public. These doors were a little more discrete than the much more grand office doors, and were as a result, a lot quieter. She ran right to the first one she saw, and found that, blessedly, it was unlocked.

She ran through and found the option to go either up or down. They wouldn’t expect her to go down, but she didn’t want to go anywhere near the vault. So, she decided to go up, but not just to the next floor, but towards the roof. She dashed upwards through what felt like a hundred steps. Each stone step being particularly steep and at an awkward angle, making it rather difficult to avoid tripping. She only hoped it would slow her pursuers as much as it was slowing her. And thankfully, she hadn’t heard them enter the stairwell yet.

Just go.

Just go.

Just go.

Just go.

Don’t turn around.

Just go.

Upon reaching the top of another set of stairs, Jane was met with a choice. Go up one more flight of stairs, or go out on the floor she was at. Several floors down, she could hear a commotion, as three men came barging through the door, their voices telling her that it was Five, Six and Nine.

“Come on, she probably went up.” Jane struggled to catch her breath, gasping for the hot air but found that the chest pain wouldn’t go. She couldn’t speak a word as she tried to come up with anything, her frantic whispers going unheard over all the clattering of heavy boots echoing against stone steps. What was she supposed to so?! They were going to catch her!

Suddenly, her brain supplied her with an idea. She had no idea if it would work, but she’d try it anyway. And if it failed, she’d just have to hope that she’s be able to work the gun in a hurry.

With all her might, she pushed the door, sending it flinging outwards, swinging around and bashing against the wall in the corridor, making it look like she’d just gone through it. But instead of heading that way, she raced up the stairs as quickly and quietly as she physically could, until she was sure they wouldn’t be able to see her when they reached the door.

It was several long seconds before the three men reached the point where she had been standing, but thankfully, they had been quick enough to arrive as the door was still swinging shut (having been slowed by at door stopper at the top, to prevent it from slamming).

“Come on! This way!” Just as she hoped, they ran through the door and began to search the wrong floor. Jane watched them leave through the banister from her place crouched on the stairs, stopping for a moment to get over the fact that that had actually just worked, and then another moment to catch her breath, before pushing herself to her feet again and continuing on her way upwards.

She couldn’t contain the smile on her face as she continued on her way. If she could hide up on the roof for a while, she could wait for the police to come in and deal with everything. Or they might even be able to send someone up to bring her down. Or there may be a different staircase to go down at the other side of the building so she could continue her search for Jack. And whatever the case, this time, she was going to take advantage of her moment of quiet to really think her decision through. They were leaving soon. Four even said it himself. She was so close to getting out of this thing alive. Her father was safe and was most likely not going to be put in danger again, so now she just had herself and her friend to worry about. She was going to be ok. Everything was going to be ok.

But when she came to the top of the stairs, she wasn’t so sure.

Blood. Lots of it. It was spattered on each step coming down from the roof, smeared on the wall where the stairs came to a turning point, and left in a little puddle on the floor. Someone must have fallen down the stairs. They must have been seriously hurt. But it couldn’t be One. Four said he was dead. Surely, they wouldn’t have moved the body already. Would they? And none of the other thugs were hurt, or any of the hostages (well, they’d all been a little roughed up throughout the day, but certainly nothing that would cause this). And there couldn’t possibly be other hostages still running around that hadn’t been caught, so the only other option was…

Jack!

Jane’s face paled. No. No no no no no no no no no no no No NO NO! This couldn’t be happening! Where had he gone? There was no other blood trail to indicate if he’d gone up to the roof or downstairs. And what if he went down? OH GOD! What if she’d just sent those three right to where he was hiding. He was hurt. She was the one with the gun. There’d be nothing he could do to save himself if they found him.

Her heart skipped a beat for the hundredth time that day as she scrambled to think of something. Surely there was something she could do to help. She couldn’t let this happen. She had to do something. They should never have split up. They should never have had that argument. She should have just followed him, and they could’ve escaped by now. Was this her fault? Because it sure felt like it. Guilt was trying to ebb away at her heart, but with sheer will, she managed to put the feeling aside. No. She could worry about morals later. Right now, she had to find Jack. She had to find her friend. She had to save him.


	13. Big Kids Don’t Cry

He wasn’t stupid. He was tired. He was in pain. He could hardly get up. But he wasn’t stupid. Jack spent five minutes at the bottom of those stairs before he was able to work up the strength to stand. He knew he had to get away. A staircase is a terrible hiding spot. And that’s what he needed to do right now: hide. He didn’t have anywhere near enough strength to plan and carry out a daring escape. Right now, he just needed to find somewhere dark and tucked away from everything and everyone, where he could sit and wait and sleep until this whole nightmare was over.

By the time Jack attempted to stand, he was feeling much better, and when he put his hand to the back of his head, it only felt like a large graze than had caused the blood. Nothing too deep, but scratching a good way along his head. It was the knock that had rattled him the most. He definitely wasn’t in any state like One had been. The thought alone made him shudder. That was a close one. But, yeah, hiding, that’s what he was doing.

Trying to push away any distressing thoughts, he started to walk down the stairs again, very slowly, very carefully, without letting go of the banister and without thinking about anything but the stairs and getting down the rest of the way without another incident. To be fair, they were very steep, and angled awkwardly with the far edge being slightly higher than the rest of the step, making it easy to trip even when one was trying to be carefully. In reality, it was a surprise that the bank hadn’t had an incident like this already.

He got one floor down before he decided not to go any further. He wanted to be as far away from the foyer and the vault as possible. So, he left the stairwell, pushing open the door to find himself in a rather nice-looking corridor. Well, almost all the corridors looked nice in this bank, so maybe it would only be normal, but it was nice to him. He scurried to the first door he could find, but it was locked. It actually took several tries at several doors to find one that was unlocked. He could feel his hope dripping away like some kind of hourglass, but it seemed to be taking much less than an hour to fall away. As he came across more locked doors, he struggled to keep the thoughts out of his head. What happened if he was caught? He killed One. Would they already know that? Would they drag him to the vault and bury him in the rubble? Would they beat him black and blue? Or would they have him meet the same fate as their leader and have him flung from the roof? He didn’t know. But the questions made him sick.

He tried another door.

Locked.

Locked.

Locked.

Locked.

LOCKED!

Why were they all locked?! They were going to find him. He could already tell. They were coming and they were going to get him and they were going to make him sorry for ever misbehaving and oh God he couldn’t breathe! By now he was stumbling between doors, frantically grabbing the handles, barely able to get ahold of himself enough to turn them and see if they would actually open or not. They were going to find him. He had to hurry! Come on, come on. OPEN! Shaking from head to toe, he grabbed at another door. If he couldn’t find a hiding place soon, he was sure his heart would explode. His eyes darted frantically left and right, expecting someone to come running at any moment. He could hear to damn voices somewhere in the distance. They were going to find him! He didn’t care where this door would take him, he just had to go!

Jack nearly landed face first as the door swung open. He hadn’t expected it to be unlocked, but he thanked God that it was. And once he found it, he was rather surprised to find a pretty senior looking office, he would’ve noticed that there was even secretary desk outside the door if he hadn’t been in such a hurry. It certainly wasn’t the chairman’s office, but whoever it belonged to must have been quite important. The walls had beautiful panelling and an intricately designed wallpaper, with mahogany furniture strewn around the room and a chandelier that would have been gently lighting the room had it been switched on. A fire stood to the side of the room, but that wasn’t lit either. This room clearly hadn’t been in use all day. However, it wasn’t cold or dark. Far from it, infact. There was a window letting in the afternoon sun and despite this particular office being towards the back of the building and not having much of a view, there was still enough light coming through to keep the room decently warm, alongside a few radiators along the walls. It was all so normal looking that for a split second, he actually felt calm for the first time in what felt like an eternity. It was almost as if his life wasn’t in danger anymore.

He quickly shut the door behind him and started to figure out what to do next. Being such a fancy room had its perks: more places to hide, a carpeted floor that was comfortable to sit on, several comfy chairs and good heating. But there were problems too. The main one being that there was a second smaller room off to the side that had another door leading out to the corridor, so Jack had two points of entry to worry about, and he didn’t have a key to lock either of them. So, Jack eventually settled on sitting under the desk. If there was two ways to get in, that meant, in his mind, that he was twice as likely to be walked in on, and he didn’t want to be caught off guard sat in any of the chairs. The desk meant he was covered on three sides with a wall close to covering him on the fourth, but he couldn’t see what was happening in the room if anything were to come in. Still, it was his safest option.

He scurried to the desk as soon as he settled on the idea and was about to crawl beneath when something caught his eye: a photograph. Specifically, one of Jane and some others. She was standing with whom he assumed were her parents and brother. They were at the park by Cherry Tree Lane and the little boy was holding a patched-up kite with a green and purple tail. Each one of them was dressed in beautiful clothes that all looked rather neat, aside from the father, who was looking rather hilariously out of place with the way his collar popped and how his hat was torn. But that seemed to have done little to dampen their spirits. They all looked so happy, and he couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. He hadn’t been on a family outing in years, and even when he did get to go on one, they were never this happy. They looked like they’d been imbued with a magical sense of joy and wonder, and he desperately wanted to have something like that of his own. His eyes were drawn to the flowery pin the father was wearing. He easily recognised it from the other people working at the bank. This must’ve been his office. And once he’d managed to tear his eyes away from the photo, he had that thought confirmed by the name plate, sitting proudly at the edge of the desk:

‘Senior Partner George Banks’

Welp, that explained the family’s wealth. And he supposed this was who he had to thank for his hiding place. Thank the lord that this Bank’s guy hadn’t locked his office up. As Jack ducked under the table and got comfortable, however, he couldn’t stop thinking about the picture. He couldn’t remember the last time his own family had been so happy. Puerto Rico was probably it, back when he was really young. Back when he didn’t know what a city looked like, and he learnt to walk in grassy fields full of crops and had all the friends you could ever ask for. He climbed trees, explored the village and swam in the lakes. He never had a care in the world. He was truly content. He had his Mama, his Abuelos, Tios, Manolito, Marisol and Rio. He didn’t need anything else. He could’ve just been a farmer and been happy. But of course, his father had to ruin things.

He dragged them to London and made things awful. He was so strict and never had any fun. God forbid he ever wanted to actually play outside with the other kids like a normal child. That was always the worst part. He didn’t even have to misbehave for him to hit him, he just had to want to. And even if he tried to avoid trouble, he would do it just because he thought Jack was being “suspiciously well-behaved” and that he was secretly up to something.

Obviously, that couldn’t go on forever. Jack was never good enough. Not when he behaved. Not when he changed his name to sound more English. Not even when he specifically tried to suck up to him. And one day, he got bored and left. He and Mama were on the streets not long after. It was a rough time, and a dangerous one too. That’s why he always assumed she’d been killed. He woke up one morning and she hadn’t come back from work. He waited and waited, but she never returned. And the day he finally left their makeshift home, he finally accepted that he was alone. And that’s the way it had been ever since.

He wanted desperately to have a family again. But nobody wanted to adopt a 12-year-old. So, he’d forced himself to get used to sleeping under bridges and stealing food and doing odd jobs to earn a few bob. But he knew he wasn’t supposed to live like that. People always talked about how “someone ought to do something about those poor street urchins”, but nobody ever did anything. He just hoped he’d manage till he was an adult, maybe then things would get easier.

Jane was lucky. She had everything she could ever need. He hoped she knew that. Oh, who was he even kidding? Of course she knew. That’s why she’d been so desperate to save her father. And yet he’d been so intent on leaving for some reason. So now he’d lost the only friend he had, just like everyone else. The only one to ever take an interest when he was in trouble. The only one who made him feel like he wasn’t all alone.

He’d never show anyone how he felt when he was alone. He’d rather die than have anyone see the tears that rolled down his cheeks, or the way sobs shook his poor tired frame. He’d never tell anyone about how he wanted someone to hold him and tell him that everything would be ok or how he tried to remember the songs his Mama used to sing to him after a nightmare to calm down. And this was the worst possible nightmare he could ever face. Alone. Hiding. Scared. Confused. In danger. And in pain. But big kids don’t cry. Big kids are never supposed to cry. Or else they’ll get laughed at and told to grow up just for being sad. They get mocked for being afraid. They get slapped for being in pain. They say, “for goodness sake, stop being so hysterical over nothing,” or “stop whining like such a baby,” and “when are you going to learn that the world doesn’t always revolve around you?!” You’re not allowed to get upset. About anything. So, you shove it down. They aren’t allowed to know. Because “big kids don’t cry”. But they do. It just means that nobody else gets to see. And nobody can make it better. Big kids do cry. But they cry when they’re alone.

And Jack was always alone.


	14. Close

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late upload today. I kept getting distracted by the election. Not sure why I’m so invested when I live in England, but oh well. At least today, all the investment has paid off. It’s a good day today!

How long had it been?

He had heard a whole group of people running by a while ago, but ever since then… nothing. Jack had stayed put under his desk for what seemed like forever, drying his eyes, and desperately trying to control his own breathing. If anyone came in, he couldn’t let them hear him, so he soon found himself trying to practice holding his breath. He couldn’t let them know. Jack hadn’t dared to even poke his head out from his hiding place. He hadn’t dared to find anywhere better or more secure. And he certainly hadn’t dared to attempt an escape. The windows were right there, but he wasn’t ready to try climbing down the walls anytime soon. Not when his whole body was still on fire after falling down the stairs.

It was really his only moment of calm for a while. He’d fallen down the stairs, before that he was stabbed, before that he’d been in the vault as it exploded and even before that he’d had that argument with Jane. God, he wished she could have been there with him. Even if they’d both been hurt. Even if neither of them knew what to do. Even if they were both just resorting to hiding and hoping and praying for it all to end. It didn’t really matter. Even the bottom of the sea isn’t so lonely when you’ve got someone else there with you. For now, all he had for comfort was the warmth of the room and the soft carpet beneath him, and while he was grateful to at least have that, they were hardly a substitute for another human being.

It was a painfully slow experience that seemed to drag on forever, regardless of the fact that Jack had been counting in his head to keep himself form thinking to much about this mess, and so he knew that he’d only been sitting there for two hundred and twenty three seconds. Hardly a lifetime. Still, Jack was convinced time had been warped. The world felt so slow. How could it possibly take so long for help to arrive. The police got there ages ago. Where were they?! He thought nobody would ever come, but after several minutes crawled by…

Footsteps.

“Maybe he’s in here.”

Jack’s heart leapt to his throat. No. NO. This couldn’t be happening! Get out! GET OUT! PLEASE! Choking on a breath, he did his best to seal his mouth shut as the door creaked open and someone came inside. Adrenaline screamed through his veins as the footsteps came closer. They turned and the person poked their head into the side room, but from Jack’s position, he still couldn’t see them. His whole body was shaking. His hands, his heart, his head, his soul. He couldn’t stop shaking and if he didn’t stop, he’d be caught. They would drag him away kicking and screaming. They’d beat him up for hurting their leading. They’d kill him and Jane for running away. This way it. It was all over it was all over.

The steps came closer.

Closer.

Closer.

Closer.

They leant over the desk.

GO AWAY!

“Oh, hello.”

Jack’s eyes shot up to where a woman that he’d only ever seen once before was standing. The ginger hair the sash, the lilac dress. There was no doubt that this was the woman from the photo. This was Jane’s mother.

His heart started to stutter back into a regular rhythm while he attempted to find his voice. She waited patiently with a kind expression, as he eyed her cautiously, before choking out a completely wrecked, “hi”.

She watched him as her features softened further, a look of pity in her eyes as she walked around to his side of the desk to kneel in front of him. She didn’t try to touch him, giving him a surprising amount of space, as if she were trying to avoid startling a rather skittish creature. Instinctively, he pressed back against the desk, wishing with all his heart that he could phase through to get to the other side and run. He didn’t really care who she was. He just wanted to hide.

“Its alright. I’m not going to hurt you. What’s your name?” A shudder ran through jack’s body at her loving tone, almost enough to keep him from answering. But he quite quickly collected his thoughts enough to say,

“Jack.”

“Jack? It’s nice to meet you. Where are your parents?”

“Not here.” Why did she need to know?

“Well, I know that, but do you know where they might be in the bank.”

“They’re not in the bank. I don’t know where they are.” He lied. Of course, he knew where they were. His dad ran off and his mother was six feet under. But he was hardly going to tell a stranger all that. The lady stopped for a moment and eyed him curiously, her gaze slowly drifting to his side.

“You’re the boy from the roof, aren’t you?” His heart may as well have stopped right there. She knew. She was going to blame him, wasn’t she?

“Yes?” Her eyes widened in alarm as she reached out to help him, only stopping when she realised she still wasn’t sure if that would make him panic further.

“You were stabbed! Are you alright?!” He almost wasn’t sure what to say. You’d think she could tell if he was bleeding. But then again, there probably was some from his head. Still, he managed to lift his vest up just enough to reveal the book underneath,

“It didn’t go through.” Her mouth fell open in shock.

“So you pushed him, then?” Jack only nodded, and it was at this point that she closed the gap between them. Pulling him into a hug, Jack tensed only for a moment before relaxing against her and holding on for dear l life. He missed getting hugs. This was nice. She was so warm and gentle with him, that for a moment, he could almost pretend that this wasn’t a total stranger giving him comfort out of pity, but his mother giving him support out of love. He took a second to listen to her heartbeat and willed his own to reach the same rate, savouring the feel of her dress’ soft fabric against him. He almost didn’t want to let go. But then she put her hand on the back of his head.

She felt the bump and something wet, and when he hissed in pain and wriggled out of her grasp, it was easy to guess what was wrong. But she hadn’t even had a chance to reach that conclusion before she saw the blood on her hand. Looking to him in a mixture of confusion and fear, Jack found himself shrinking back again.

“Oh yeah… that. He didn’t stab me, but I might have fallen down the stairs afterwards.” She stopped for a moment, deep in thought, before gesturing for him to turn around so she could have a look. Jack wasn’t exactly sure what she was supposed to be looking for, but after a little while of her shifting his hair around and trying not to poke it, she sighed and came to the conclusion that it didn’t look too bad. It was nothing deep, just a large graze, which was why he was bleeding so much. She wasn’t overly worried, but he could tell that, had their current circumstances been different, she would have been paying the injury much more attention. But it would have to wait for the moment. They had much more important things to do.

“By the way, who are you?” Jack asked.

“Well, my name is Winifred. Winifred Banks.”

Across the Bank, Jane also had Jack on her mind. But unlike her mother, she was nowhere near finding him. She had continued running up the stairs after seeing the blood, not wishing to have to head back down the way she came. Thankfully, there was another staircase on the other side of the roof to take back down into the main building. She headed down to the floor her pursuers had gone to, but was afraid to enter, in case she ran into them again. In the end, she couldn’t bring herself to go through, and went down another floor instead.

Dodging around the corridor and peering around each corner made for a slow process, but it was miles safer than charging around without a care in the world. She could hear shouting coming from the direction of the foyer. And a lot of it. She could only dread to think what was happening. But that wasn’t the point. She had to find Jack and her Father and get out.

She tried as many room as she could, taking a minute to properly look around inside and thoroughly check that there was nobody hiding. But with so many cupboards and offices and boardrooms and some were locked and there were a million corridors to check and it was all getting to be a bit too much. The place was so huge that by the time she checked an area, Jack could have moved somewhere else, somewhere she’d already been and wasn’t going back to. But she couldn’t just stand around and wait to come across him either; the place was so big that the chances of them meeting by accident were painfully slim. Still, none of this did anything but spur her on even more. She couldn’t give up. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

It was after several long minutes that she heard the familiar voices of her pursuers again. She had started her search a floor below them, but they already had a head start and didn’t have to worry about being slow and careful. It seemed like they’d finally reached her level. She had to go.

As much as she wanted to keep searching, she had no choice. She took off running before another though had the chance to enter her head and persuade to her to hang on. She didn’t care if she was being loud. She could hear their voices, so she knew they were far away. Even if they hear her, they were too far to catch her or keep up with her easily.

She took the most convoluted path possible in a bid to make it harder to listen to her footsteps and follow. It seemed to be working, because while they were definitely running around and getting closer, it seemed purely coincidental that they were heading the same direction. Her suspicions were confirmed when she changed course and they continued on without fail. They were just guessing. She still had time.

Reaching the next staircase, she flung the door open and raced down again, reaching the ground floor once more. She wasn’t too far away from the foyer, so she was tempted to run the other way. But when she finally made out what all the commotion was, her heart skipped a beat.

Pacing closer, she poked her head around a corner. The corridor led directly into the foyer where she could see, unobstructed, a large group of armed police were had arrived to help the hostages. She could even see her Father freely chatting with one of them as they attempted to calm the room. She couldn’t see any of the gang, but they had been planning to scarper, so she assumed they’d already left for the escape tunnel.

It was finally over. She was safe. She could go see her father and get the police to help find her friend. Everything was finally going to be alright again.

Except no. That would too easy. Right as she attempted to run to safety, a hand was clamped over her mouth and she was dragged backwards around the corner. As she lost sight of her freedom, she whipped around to come face to face with Six, ramming his gun against the side of her head.

“I wouldn’t try causing anymore trouble if I were you.”


	15. To The Lion’s Den

Jane hadn’t considered what to do if she was caught. She had always known it wasn’t an option, that if, by some unfortunate miracle, they found her, it was game over. So, when she was being dragged away, going down,  
down,  
down,  
down,  
down, she didn’t bother fighting. She knew she’d only make things worse for herself if she tried. Maybe they’d put a bullet through her head, or they’d throw her down the stairs, or god knows what else. She could feel the small gun she still had hidden in a rather rare occurrence for most dresses: a pocket. However, as this particular one was more ruffled than most, it made it much easier to conceal a helpfully large-sized pocket amongst the fabric, just big enough to fit a compact revolver in without a noticeable bump on the outside for any ill-intended eyes to spot. However, with all those ruffles, she couldn’t easily draw the weapon out before someone else could stop her. She could only hope and pray for a distraction to give her any chance of escape. But as she was taken further and further away from any other form of life aside for the criminals she feared, she realised there was no chance of that happening anytime soon.

Of course, they were going to be furious. Their perfect plan had all but fallen apart at this point. They had had to fall back on the bomb plan, their leader was dead, and they were all but surrounded by probably every available police officer in London with a good portion of the army there too. And of course, it was all going to be her fault, despite not actually having anything to do with those particular problems. She hadn’t done much at all to them other than run away and be a general nuisance. But she was hardly prepared to argue her reasoning with men like that.

So, when she was brought to see Two (who she assumed was the second in command and had now taken charge), and every other member of the gang, as they were all waiting with him, she stayed in total silence, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. Afterall, she knew he didn’t even have the unloaded revolver, and it was maddening to know the now-not-so-unloaded revolver was in her pocket, but she couldn’t even use it quickly enough to get away. Even if she managed to get it out, she’d have nine armed men to contend with and only six bullets. She wouldn’t have enough even if she managed to get the other six to hit the perfect lethal target, which was probably the most unlikely thing she’d thought about all day. No, there was nothing she could do. This was it.

“Aha!” Two’s laughter rang out through the stone corridor, “So Twelve, you’ve finally decided to grace us with your presence, have you?” Jane stayed silent and found herself unable to meet his hard gaze. She hated that name, and was half tempted to inform him that she did infact have a name and was a human being rather than one of his tools, but while her parents may have been proud of her bravery, they wouldn’t be so happy when her impertinence in the presence of criminals left her dead. She wouldn’t speak unless she absolutely had to, because, funnily enough, she quite liked having her skull all in one piece.  
Two stared at her, as if he was expecting an answer from her. After they’d dealt with her father, though they didn’t know their relation, they were probably expecting her to do the same things, considering her track record with them. And while she was still so tempted, she only looked up at him.

“You got anything to say or are you just going to stand there and waste my time even more?” She wasn’t sure what to say, so she still didn’t say anything. It was like, now that she had realised the severity of her situation, some invisible force had clamped a hand over her mouth, and even if she tried to scream, not even a peep would escape. Now that she was face-to-face with their fury for the first time, it took everything to hide the fact that she was trembling like a kitten and feeling like she might faint at any moment.

“So, you’re not even going to tell me where our good friend, Eleven, is?” She couldn’t answer that even if she could still talk. She had no idea where he could be. Though it did remind her that she thought she’d sent her pursuers right to him. So, she was relieved to see that they hadn’t actually found him. Still, she didn’t feel much better. He was probably hurt. There was a lot of blood at those stairs and it couldn’t be anyone else’s. She just hoped that he’d gotten out. He could go find himself a family to call his own, and forget her. If anything, all this palaver was keeping the gang away from him, and any other hostages that were still inside. The police were already getting them out, so she could at least say she was helping by creating a distraction.

Two just stood over her, looming. He didn’t particularly care what happened to her. This girl was more trouble than she was worth. His only concern was that the boy still roamed free, and he may very well lead the police right to them. Hell, they were probably on their way down right now. He was just glad that a quick bullet through the head probably wouldn’t be heard through all the layers of concrete between them and the police. At least they wouldn’t come running any faster. It was about time he dealt with the two himself. If they were going to get out, they needed to be eliminated. God, why the hell had One brought them in the first place? They had only been there to help Six, but with how long all this had taken, Six could have probably cleared all the safe deposit boxes on his own. It had to be their fault. Even with what happened to Dawes. Even with the police. Even with One. They had faced similar challenges many times in many other bank jobs. The only difference was the kids. They were always having to worry about what they were up to, that they couldn’t focus on their own jobs. It was their fault. Absolutely.

The fury was bubbling away inside him as he looked at this little girl, looking so innocent and not at all like she had ruined their plans. He could even see her trembling, like a scared child rather than the conniving little brat he knew she was. How else would she have evaded them for so long?! But as much as he wanted to figure out what made her tick, he knew that it was that same need to focus on the doings of these children that got them into this situation in the first place. He didn’t have time for this. He just needed to get rid of her, and he had just the tools for the job. He couldn’t help but wonder if he could make her cry.

Meanwhile, in a lavish office far away from the vault, Winifred had just about convinced Jack that she wasn’t going to hurt him, and that she wanted to bring him to safety. She had seen how his eyes darted between her and the photograph sitting on, what she realised was her husband’s desk. It was a rather funny coincidence that she happened to be wearing the exact same thing as she was in that photo, which was probably why the poor boy had been so confused. He was probably wondering if she was really there or if it was all just his imagination. Afterall, it wouldn’t have been such a far-fetched idea to say that she had climbed straight out of the frame. Not after the day they’d had, anyway. She could even say, quite proudly, that she didn’t even look much older, despite the photo being several years old. But that wasn’t important. What mattered was finding her husband and getting him and this boy to safety. His parents were probably worried sick.

It had taken several more minutes to convince him to crawl out from under the desk and follow her, but once he was out, he didn’t leave her side. She held his hand and led him through the chaos, trying to figure out how to get to the foyer at the front of the building on the ground floor from the top floor at the rear of the building. The place was a maze, but she was able to find some stairs to take them downwards, eventually. Jack remained quiet at her side, and she couldn’t help but wonder whether that was from more than just fear. The blood from his head wasn’t flowing, but it clearly had been at some point before she found him. By now it had soaked into the back of his collar and a little on his shoulders, where it had dried, and would most likely leave a stain. But based on his high-quality clothes, she assumed his parents could easily replace them. But you couldn’t replace a brain. She wasn’t a doctor, and couldn’t really say whether it was a bad hit, but she knew that any head injury was cause for concern. Lord only knows what lasting damage he could be stuck with if he wasn’t seen to, quickly.

She was so caught up in her thoughts, that she didn’t even notice that Jack had stopped. He let go of her hand and turned to her, waiting for her to realise he wasn’t following, and come back. She was a few feet away before she stopped and looked back to him.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, her voice barely above a whisper. They were on the ground floor, and neither of them were sure whether or not the police had dealt with the crooks trying to rob the place. They could’ve been running around anywhere without them knowing, so they couldn’t take any chances.

Jack tried to point to what he saw, but by the time he had her attention and looked back to where it was, it was gone. He let out a frustrated sigh, took a second to collect himself, and then, without a word, took off running.

Winifred almost jumped out of her skin as she watched him scarper. He was going to get himself killed! Her motherly instincts kicked in, and despite not having any idea what danger they could be running right into, she followed him. Her heart was in her throat as she kept up, her longer legs meaning she should have been able to race ahead, but her heels slowing her down to the same pace as Jack. He may have been small, but he was pretty fast. However, as she followed from behind, it meant she had a clear view of the back of his head, and she couldn’t help but cringe at the sight.

They eventually rounded a corner, and with Jack being several metres ahead of her, he was able to see that whatever they were chasing had gone through a staff only door and headed down the staircase that it led to. She didn’t like the idea of heading down. If they did that, they surely be closer to the vault. And even if the criminals weren’t there, she’s heard that explosion they caused. And she certainly didn’t like the idea of being under several hundred tons of concrete, knowing it was all unstable and could collapse on top of her at any moment. But Jack was already through the door, and she didn’t want to let such a seriously injured boy run into danger without backup. Afterall, all this running was making him look terribly pale, the knock clearly starting to get to him, now. So, she couldn’t let him go alone.

She caught up with him as they went down the stairs, no longer being hindered by her heels now that she wasn’t running. And since she could just about keep pace while she ran, she was able to stay at his side when he shot off through the corridors again at the bottom.

There was definitely a voice now. She could hear it only a little further down. A cold sense of fury dripping from it like a predator just about to mutilate its prey. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for whatever poor soul had invoked such a reaction, but she didn’t want to get any closer to help, not when it was clear that these were the gun wielding thugs that had hurt this child, taken her husband prisoner and undoubtedly harmed many others. She approached the corner where Jack was peering around, a look of pure horror on his face.

She didn’t want to look. Lord only knows what he had seen. But something in her was screaming to do it. She couldn’t say why. But it was like her body knew already, shaking terribly and sending her heart to her throat where it beat like a thundering drum. Her hands gripped the stone wall, ever so carefully. She couldn’t be spotted. Why was she so scared? The screaming in her head got louder, telling her that this was so important and that she should already know what she was about to see. Because the world had turned upside down as soon as those thugs fired their first shots when they came to this place. Her husband was never meant to be there today. He wasn’t working, yet fate had brought him. And when she laid her eyes on the figure at the end of the hall, gun pointed to their head, she realised fate had brought someone else, too.

Jane.


	16. Plan Z

No one can tell you how to react. Nobody can argue how your instincts should be working. That’s not the point of them. They’re instinctive. And so, a mother seeing her child in danger will react differently from a young boy in the same situation. Winifred Banks had no quarrel in jumping out from their hiding place behind the wall to cause any form of distraction that might give her daughter a chance to run away.

As soon as she leapt into the open, she only had a chance to shout “HEY” before the thugs had all turned and given her their full attention. And by the time she had the chance to say, “get away from my daughter”, said daughter also had the chance to react. It was only this and a few seconds of silent confusion where neither party knew what to do next, but it was more than enough time for Jane to whip her revolver out of her rare pocket before anyone could stop her, squeeze her eyes shut and fire two bullets at point blank range into her attackers.

BANG!

BANG!

Silence.

Before anyone could react, two bodies fell to the floor. Six, whom had been the closest one to her, clutched his side, where the first bullet had a lucky hit, going straight through one of his lower ribs, scattering the bone shrapnel throughout him. While Two grabbed at the top of his leg, where the bullet had penetrated his hip. He was the first to drop, and as he was having an easier time breathing than Six, he screamed the loudest.

The group had already turned back around by the time that their bodies had landed, and while most would have jumped into action to help their writhing comrades at their feet, the gang instead chose to step away, no longer wishing to provoke the terrified and now armed child in from of them. However, in their shocked minds, they never even considered that by backing away, they had provided a perfect opening for Jane to see her Mother. And like any child would, she didn’t want to know why she was there or how she was there. She just wanted to be next to her and away from these men. She only needed to see her for half a second before she made up her mind to run right past them all and reach her. And Winifred couldn’t have cared less about those crooks when Jane ran into her arms, for she was too busy drowning in relief.

“I’m so glad you’re ok! What are you doing here? Did they hurt you? Did they-”

“Hey!” Their reunion was cut off by another voice, who Jane quickly realised was Three. With One dead and Two now on the ground, they had already reverted to their third in command.

“Who the hell are you?!” he demanded. Jane looked up to her Mother, unsure of what else to say. But Winifred knew exactly what to do. Any mother in danger can become a fearless beast to protect her child, and the Banks were never cowards in the first place, so nothing would stop her now.

“I’m her Mother! And what on earth do you think you’re doing to my daughter?!” Three chuckled,

“So, you made her, huh? Then I guess I have you to thank for ruining our day, then, don’t I?” He paused, eying them up and down. “The rozzers are already inside. But they won’t get down here quick enough to save you. Hope it was all worth it.”

There was no warning. A silent signal had already been circulated amongst the men, and as soon as Three had stopped talking, they were sprinting down the corridor towards them, those with loaded guns already pulling them out to take aim. Jane and Winifred were lucky that their running meant it was harder to aim steadily, and several bullets went whizzing by, the closest one only happening to blast through Winifred’s hat, flinging the light fabric from her head. However, this made it easier for Winifred to remove her suffragette sash, and a in a quick moment of desperate thinking, wrapped it around the first unlucky soul to get near her. And that unlucky soul was Five.

He clawed desperately at the fabric, but it was so thin that it fit over his neck like a new layer of skin, and no matter how hard he scratched, he could only draw blood from his own neck. The smooth fit was impossible to break, the sashes having been made to survive anything the suffragettes had to face. No matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t loosen her grip, and as his lungs burnt and his heart slowed, he could feel himself sagging in her arms, his vision beginning to go dark. And yet all this time, he couldn’t understand why nobody was helping.

But unfortunately for Five, being so preoccupied, he never noticed that Jane had fired three more times at the thugs, and despite having missed the first shot, she managed to hit Ten and Eight with the other two. They had dropped immediately, clutching at their wounds, while Jack finally took advantage of his hiding place, to suddenly jump out unexpectedly and beat Seven over the head with his book, the sudden hard knock managing to rattle him enough that he fell over and knocked himself out on the stone floor.

That left Three, Four and Nine standing. All three of them unarmed. So, with Jane, Winifred and Jack having their own weapons, they could easily make up for the fact that they were certainly weaker than the criminals standing before them. And that was enough to keep everyone frozen in place for several long seconds.

Three growled as Winifred let Five’s unconscious body hit the floor, her face stone cold.

“My god, you’re all such a pain, aren’t you? I take it, it runs in the family, huh?” Jane wanted to shout something at them, but found her mouth was frozen shut. She tightened her grip on the revolver in an attempt to hide the fact that she was certain that she was shaking. And she refused to let them see her scared of them. She wouldn’t let them win. She couldn’t.

“So why don’t you stop trying to kill us all and maybe we can work something out, how about that?” Three was a terrible actor, and didn’t sound genuine at all. His sinister tone meant that when he tried to take a step closer, Jane was the first person to shout,

“NO!”

“No?” Three looked thoughtful, turning his gaze to Four and Nine at his side, “No?” He laughed. “You do know what that means then, don’t you?” Jane looked between her Mother and Jack in confusion, only to find from their perplexed expressions, that they too had no idea what he was talking about.

“We didn’t use all the explosives to open the vault, you know.” Four chuckled.

“That would have brought the whole place crashing down.” Nine added.

“Exactly,” Three turned back to the three, “You’ll never be able to stop us if you’re buried under a couple hundred tons of concrete.” Jane’s heart may well have stopped right then and there. They couldn’t be serious. Could they? Her Father was still upstairs! She and Jack looked to her Mother, hoping for some form of comfort, but Winifred had nothing to give. She was even more horrified at the prospect of losing her husband, and was hurriedly trying to think of how she could get the children out in time. The crooks just laughed at them

“That made you listen, didn’t it? Maybe now you’ll behave.” All at once, the three of them launched. Jane and Jack found they were shoved back by Winifred, who grabbed Jack’s book from his hands and beat Nine over the head with even more force then Jack had initially used. As he fell to the floor, she simply shouted, 

“RUN.”

Jack and Jane bolted down the hallway, though Jack had to mostly drag Jane, who definitely did not like the idea of leaving her Mother behind. She looked back more times than she could ever be bothered to count, checking and rechecking that she was ok, until she managed to trip and almost took out Jack with her.

“Hey, look where you’re going! She’ll be fine.” Except she wasn’t. With a hefty whack, she watched as Four knocked her Mother to the floor, where she lay completely still.

“MUM!!”

The sudden cry was enough to grab Three and Four’s attention, who immediately bolted after them. There was no way they’d be able to get away. They were so much faster, chasing them like rabid dogs. Their wild eyes fixed on the two of them, thrilled by the thought of hunting down and devouring their prey. Jack ran as fast as he could, pulling his distraught friend along and trying to ignore the fact that all this madness was starting make his head throb. He might’ve fainted if his heart hadn’t been beating so hard that he was genuinely worried he might break his own ribs. He had no idea what to do, until they came across a staff bathroom, which Jack flung open and shoved the two of them into, before locking the door behind him. The two of them stepped away from the door as Three and Four arrived, banging loudly, but finding the heavy-duty doors of the bank were used everywhere and they were practically impossible to kick down.

“There. That should do it.” Jack sighed in relief as his legs gave out, dropping him to the floor beside Jane, who was equally exhausted. The two took a moment to catch their breath, but found they couldn’t really calm down much at all.

“Fine!” Three’s exasperated call rang out through the bathroom, despite the door’s attempt to muffle it. “Have it your way! We have plenty of bombs left.” With that, the two stormed off, leaving Jack and Jane to hyperventilate on the floor.

“What do we do now?!” Jane cried. Her mother was still out there, and most likely hurt quite badly, and now this?! This wasn’t meant to happen. She just needed to get out. How had this even happened?! None of them should have been there in the first place. And now, for the first time all day, she was certain that she was going to die.

Jack desperately tried to rack his brain for an answer, but finding he was equally hysterical to be able to think properly. It took several more moment s before he could even attempt to think, and even then, am answer didn’t seem to be coming to him. Then it hit him. The hostages were all in the foyer by the main door. By now, the police had probably gotten it unlocked and were getting everyone out. So, if the bomb went off, they would probably all be ok. It was really just themselves they had to worry about. After spending the whole day in the bank, he knew very well that the only way for them to get to Winifred from where they were now, would involve running past the vault. Three and Four would catch them easily, especially if they were pulling Winifred along aswell. And by now, some of the gang that they managed to take down had probably gotten back up again and caught up with the rest. There was too many of them. They needed a distraction.

“Jane, I have an idea.” Jane shot him a startled look, surprised that he hadn’t just given up by now.

“What?” Jack relayed his thoughts to Jane, who seemed relieved that he wasn’t considering that they abandon her Mum, but she had a feeling that she already knew what he was going to say next.

“But for this to work, I’m going to have to stay behind.”

“Are you crazy?! NO! I’m not leaving you!”

“Jane,” Jack pleaded, “Listen. It’s the only way. If I distract them long enough for you and your mum to get a head start, I can set off the bomb and stop them while you two would be able to keep going and get out.”

“But what about you?! You’ll probably get crushed too. You’ll never get away in time!”

“Its either you or me, Jane. One of us has to stay. But you’ve got a family, and I’ve already split you up enough today. I’ve not got somebody to miss me. It won’t hurt as much if I’m gone.”

Jane could hardly believe it. He didn’t really think that did he? This was insane!

“Jack, no! We can’t do that!” Jane was crying by now. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t fair. This shouldn’t have been the only option. There had to something else. Anything!!

“Think about it, Jane. What else can we do?” Jane was silenced, looking at him in horror. He was serious. He looked terrified, but determined, and as he took the revolver from her, she could see that his hands were shaking. It had to be done. He was right. There was really no other way. This wasn’t just plan B or C. They really had run out of options, now. This was plan Z.

“There’s one bullet left,” Jane said, slowly, examining his face for any chance that he might back down, but alas, there was nothing. “Don’t miss.”

There were no more words exchanged between them as they unlocked the door and crept up the hallway. Just ahead, they could see that Jack was right. It seemed that Nine and Seven, the two that had been hit with the book, had gotten back up and re-joined the group. It looked like they were almost done setting up, so they quickly dashed closer. Jane crept by the vault silently, taking note that her Mother was conscious, just a little confused. Carefully, she helped her stand, as Jack watched from the other side of the vault, the revolver hidden behind his back, ready to spring into action. And as expected, it only took a few more seconds for Four to ask,

“Did you hear something?” Jack took it as his que to jump out from his place, and when the gang stepped into the corridor and saw him on their left, they were too preoccupied to notice Jane and Winifred running away on the right.

“You’ll never get away with this!” Jack yelled, having nothing better to say, and trying desperately to use his voice to mask the sound of the ladies’ footsteps on the stone floor. The four men never turned away from Jack, laughing at him all the while and letting Jack get a good look at the explosives behind them.

“Oh, you think so, do you? Look around kid. Its over.” Jack spared a glance passed them, seeing the girls had made it too the stairs, long enough ago that the door had swung shut, despite the metal closer slowing it. They were probably a good way up by now to be safe. They’d have time to get out.

“Yeah, it is.” Pulling his revolver out and firing at the explosives, Jack tried not to close his eyes.

Don’t miss.

Don’t’ miss.

Don’t miss.

Whatever you do, don’t miss. Jane’s warning rattled around his head hundreds of times, over and over in half a second.

Don’t miss.

He didn’t.

They didn’t even have a chance to stop him.


	17. Disintegration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can’t believe the end is in sight. I think next week will be the last one, so I hope you’re ready!

The bang went almost completely unheard. It was far too deep underground to shake through the whole building as the previously fired bullets had done. Even in the staircase, the next closest people to the shot: Jane and her Mother, could hardly hear the crack. What they heard come afterwards.

It had only lasted seconds. A small rumbling that erupted into an almighty boom before you even had the chance to register its existence. They never saw the huge burst of orange flames, screeching from the vault to devour whichever unlucky soul happened to be standing too close. They never saw the shrapnel from what was left of the vault door being flung out to shred through skin and stone. They never felt the deadly rainfall of sparks, showering down all around them. And they never got to inhale the terror of the thick black smog that seemed to claw at your throat and burn its way into your lungs until you could no longer beg for mercy. They never got to know because they were already halfway up the stairs. They had their own problems.

The shaking could be felt throughout the building. Three was right. The roof was coming down around them. Now, being in the rather small staircase did mean there was less of a chance of everything falling apart, but that didn’t stop them from running. Winifred had been dragging her feet a little the whole time, still being rather dazed from the blow she took. But upon hearing the explosion, she had grabbed her daughter and braced for everything to come crashing down around them. But once the initial shaking stopped, she had grabbed her hand and the two had taken off running up the stairs, desperately trying to avoid being hit by some of the broken pieces of stone that were falling around them.

There was a huge crash somewhere in the building, as the whole place seemed to be ripped apart. The ceiling sounded to have caved in around the vault, and they could only guess what else the collapse would drag down with it. But they were hardly going to stand around to find out. The two bolted up with as much energy as they could possibly manage, flinging the door open when they finally reached the ground floor. And the distant screams were becoming much less distant as they approached the foyer.

The floor was cracking in all new places. Places much much MUCH further away from the damage caused by the first explosion. The desperate sprint to the foyer was made much more difficult as the cracks split open further, and if they weren’t careful, it would be quite easy to accidently get one’s feet caught in the gaps, trapping you until the floor split open enough for you to fall through, completely. Jane and Winifred dodged and weaved between the fissures, reaching new corridors, finding them too dangerous and being forced to retreat in the opposite direction.

Winifred gave Jane a shove out of the way as a piece of stone from the crumbling walls dropped in front of them, before having to drag her back to avoid another. Jane let her Mother direct her, trusting entirely that she would see all the dangers in time. But what that did mean, was that as the seconds ticked by, it was getting much harder to find a route out of the bank. The screams of the hostages were growing fainter, seemingly as they ran for their lives, and they wanted nothing more than to join them. Seconds stretched on forever, until all by chance, a blocked path forced them down a corridor they’d never seen before, and to their relief, it led them to the foyer.

The cracks were much larger than before, and they were only being split further apart. Dust rained down from above as the floor was ripped in half. Each tiny crack growing until the floor broke and fell through to the basement levels below, crashing down with an almighty bang, shattering the thick stone walls beneath as if they were merely a thin sheet of ice over water. Each piece that collapsed left an even greater hole than the last, and as Winifred and Jane tried to leap from one piece to the other, they were quickly running out of time, and the gaps were becoming impossible to pass.

“HELP!” Winifred screamed, her daughter joining in. They could hardly hear themselves over their thudding hearts and frantic breaths, but despite that and the thundering noise around them, one man in particular recognised their voices. One man who’s experience in wars left him brave enough to make sure everyone else got out before him:

George Banks.

He heard his wife and daughter’s cry immediately. After the day he’d had, he didn’t even think to question why or how they were there, and he never considered dismissing them as being his imagination. After today, anything was possible. And in that moment, they needed him.

Diving forward, he reached a split in the floor, the stone sliding down at a forty-five-degree angle, where it had stopped and gotten stuck. He slid down part way and jumped to the next piece, arriving at one that seemed to be balancing on some sort of column right under the middle of the stone, allowing it to teeter precariously as George moved from one side to the other. He could only thank his lucky stars that the floor’s extreme weight meant it didn’t tip too much by adding his weight to it, and he was able to safely cross to the side closest to his family.

A huge area of the floor had fallen through, leaving an enormous hole between them, and upon looking around, it became quite clear that there was no other way to reach the doors. George didn’t want to look down, knowing already in his heart that it was a long way to fall, and not wanting to have that visually confirmed. Not when his wife and daughter looked so scared. He knew very well that there wasn’t an easy way to get them across, it was much too far to jump. But when he got his idea, he almost didn’t want to say it out loud.

“Throw Jane over! I’ll catch her.” He called.

Winifred looked to Jane; a look of apology written all over her features. Of course, she trusted her husband, but it didn’t make it any easier. Jane didn’t fight when her Mother lifted her bridal style. She simply tried to take deep breaths and quieten her mind as she was swung back and forth to build momentum. The anxiety pierced her heart, but she kept her mouth shut as her Mother counted under her breath. This had to be done. There was no other way.

“1.”

“2.”

“3!”

With as much force as she could manage, Winifred flung her daughter over the chasm. Her body completely unable to move once she was in the air. But just as he promised, on the other side, her Father was waiting with open arms, as she fell into his grasp. He caught her by the arms as she fell in front of him. And had he been a second too late, she would’ve plummeted into the depths below. The thought alone made him tighten his grip on her, as he brought Jane up from dangling over the edge, and placed her to stand just behind him.

“Alright, Winifred, your turn.” Winifred would have been lying if she said she wasn’t scared. He came so close to missing Jane despite her having been thrown. There was no way she could do this. Her hands trembled and her eyes watered as she looked at her husband. Please don’t let her fall. Sweat was trickling down her neck as her whole body seemed to heat up. She clenched her fists as tightly as she could, and in one swift and sudden movement, launched herself over the edge.

Don’t miss.

George reached out for her, but she was too far away. She didn’t reach the ledge, and George was forced to practically dive over the edge after her as she let out a cry. By some miracle, as he lay on the floor, he had been just about able to reach his wife, grabbing her arm and clinging on for dear life. She only dangled for a moment before he was pulling her up, with all the strength he could muster.

Don’t let go.

Don’t let go.

Don’t let go.

Hauling her up, Winifred was soon able to get her feet under her and stand freely on the platform, The rest of the building was still shaking and crumbling, as each area that collapsed seemed to set off another area to meet the same fate, in a horrific domino effect. George took his wife and daughter’s hands, and together, the three of them raced to the other side of the floor and jumped onto the slanted piece by the door, feeling it slide further upon their landing. But the Banks family were too quick, and by the time the piece came loose and crashed down below, they were already out of the door.

Out. Now there’ s something they hadn’t thought was possible for the longest time.

Jane turned back to the bank, trying to avoid the glaring sun shining in her eyes. The building really was a state. Through the large open doors, she could get a great view of the abhorrent level of damage that had been done, as most of the floor had collapsed through to the levels beneath it. The walls were covered in cracks and breaks as things seemed to come loose and tumble down every second. Even the outside wasn’t spared of damage. She was now able to see that the explosion had shaken the building badly enough to crack and shatter many of the windows across the bank, their shards having rained down and settled all over the pavement they now stood on. She saw the police leading the injured away to the several ambulance crews while their sirens blared over the madness. Firemen were trying to get closer, clearly itching to get in and search for any more casualties, but backing away each time they approached as another window shattered or another roof tile fell. It was all just so unstable. Too unstable to do anything with, for the moment.

And they’d just survived that.

They stood in total shock for several seconds, just staring at the mess, until there was a louder bang and something much bigger inside seemed to have fallen through the floor. The surprisingly loud noise seemed to startle everyone into scurrying much further away as a plume of dust blew out like the shockwave of a bomb. Firemen were urging everyone away as they feared the whole building would fall apart, and the Banks let themselves be moved. Too busy trying to get over the shock of what they’d just witnessed.

Never before had Jane noticed how time is so much like water; that it can pass so slowly, a drop at a time, even freeze, or rush by in a blink. Her Father’s watch said it was a measured and constant part of an orderly world; the watch was lying. It had to be. For the next few minutes passed like thousands of camera frames per second shown one at a time. In this slow time-bubble the city din was louder, coldness was colder, and colours were brighter. All the while her insides felt as if there was nothing there, nothing to have need of anything at all.

She tried to look at anything else around her, but found that nothing could help slow the frenzied beating of her heart. She was safe now. Yet why was it that now of all times, she wanted to break down in tears?! She only felt worse as the adrenaline started to wear off, and she finally took notice of how tired she was. But she didn’t care about that. She didn’t care about that at all. She didn’t care that her Mother was crying or that her Father was holding them close and fighting to keep his own emotions in check. What she cared about was who didn’t make it out. And as seconds dragged into minutes, he still didn’t appear.

Winifred had already guessed his fate. But Jane wouldn’t accept it. No way. He couldn’t be. He had to be alive under there somewhere! Of course he had somebody to miss him: her! One’s blood, although mostly smeared away thanks to the dust and heavy footfall of the ex-hostages, still lay spattered in front of the main door, taunting her. She hoped those thugs were dead. Every last one of them. It wasn’t fair what they’d done. He didn’t deserve this. Jack should have made it out. They should’ve stayed friends. Hell, after everything they’d been through in just one whole day, they should’ve been best friends. But no. Fate wouldn’t give him a break. And she wasn’t apparently allowed to meet new kinds of people. And as the rumbling of the bank fell quiet, and the firemen started their search, she knew what they’d find. She wouldn’t admit it to herself, but she knew. And she couldn’t bear to see it happen. So, when her Father finally suggested they go home and relax, she allowed herself to be led away from the madness, and bundled into a taxi to take them back home. Back where, this morning, the whole world had seemed oh so innocent.


	18. Somebody To Miss Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe I originally thought this fic was only going to take about seven chapters to complete.

Maybe it was four o’clock. Or maybe it was five. To be honest, Jane didn’t know and didn’t care. But the light was just about beginning to wane before the sky was painted with an orange sunset. She hadn’t really been looking at anything else. In the taxi, her Mother and Father had been talking non-stop about why they had been at the bank and what they’d been through, but while they did ask Jane (and she did give a quick answer) she was otherwise able to avoid the conversation in favour of looking out the window and admiring the sky. She was vaguely aware of when her Mother started talking about her: how she had defended herself and been a hero, but Jane didn’t think that. It was the one who was hardly mentioned who was a hero. Her Mother had only brought him up in passing, and her Father didn’t press for more information about the boy or his current whereabouts. And anyway, what could be said: he was lying dead under several hundred tons of concrete?

It was a strange feeling to pass everyone in the street and find yourself unable to stop searching for a face you’ll never see. But Jane simply couldn’t stop looking. What if he got out? What if he escaped after they left? What if they simply just hadn’t spotted him? But even despite this hopeful thinking, she knew, secretly, deep down in the darkest depths of her heart, that it was hopeless. It just wasn’t true.

The taxi ride was over in only a matter of several more minutes of Jane’s melancholy thinking, and soon enough, she was been hurried outside, up the steps and into the house, where Ellen and Cook had already gotten drinks ready for everyone.

The decorators had long since left for the day, it was fairly quiet. But of course, not for long. Because, despite his illness, as most would have expected in such a situation, Michael was up and after hearing about the robbery on the radio, was both elated and upset. He’d spent the whole day wondering if his Father was alright and had no idea where his Mother and sister were, but once they were back, he was floored with relief and unbelievable excited to see how they’d all been involved and made it out. He wanted to know every last detail. However, while her parents were happy to see and talk to him, Jane wasn’t quite as excited. She gave him a quick hug and said hello to Ellen and Cook, before dashing away to the nursery to have some time alone.

Upon reaching the nursery, she couldn’t help but notice how is actually smelt alright for once. Michael clearly hadn’t been sick, and the faint smell of bleach in the air told her that it had been thoroughly cleaned earlier that day. However, the sterile environment did nothing to lift her spirits, and afterall, she was still a mess of dust and dirt from all the chaos at the bank. She even had a few splatters of blood from when she was shooting people, that she was trying to ignore. And, oh God, the guns. She never wanted to see one again. The bang. Their cries. No. The thought alone made her feel sick. In fact, she was rather grateful that there was still a bucket by Michael’s bed. He wasn’t going to be the only one puking into it if she couldn’t stop thinking about it all.

Changing into clean pyjamas and flopping down onto her bed, Jane tried to think about anything else. But the only memory that was strong enough was of Jack. And that just made her cry. She didn’t want to have to think about him either. He just seemed to disappear for so long after their fight, and then when he came back, she only got to see him for a few minutes before he started talking about how nobody would miss if he were to blow himself up. Of course he’d be missed! Was he crazy?! Just because he didn’t have parents to come looking for him didn’t mean nobody else would. She made a friend today. She missed him. That had to count for something, right?! She wasn’t quite sure how long she lay there, but it was long enough that the sun had a chance to set completely and for voices to begin to approach. She wiped her tears away and tried to ignore the way her heart seemed to have split in two. She didn’t have time to deal with this when she could hear someone coming upstairs. Correction: several someones.

“That sounds so cool! I wish I was there!”

“Well, I’m glad you weren’t. It was dangerous enough already. I don’t think I could’ve managed if there were anyone else in this family there for me to worry about.” The door swung open and Michael walked in with their Father close behind.

“JANE! Did you really SHOOT people?! Mum said you did!” Jane shuddered at his question, really wishing she could be anywhere else in that moment. Thankfully, George seemed to pick up on this and quickly moved the conversation along, making a mental note to talk with her properly about everything at some point.

“Now, now. I think that’s enough excitement for one day. Right now, I think it’s time for bed.”

“Aaaw! But I want to hear about the robbers!”

“Come on. The story can be told again tomorrow.” Jane turned away from the pair as she listened to her Father getting Michael into his pyjamas and settled in bed. She really wished Michael had actually been there. Maybe then he wouldn’t be asking so many questions. And with if he hadn’t been sick and able to hang out with her, Jane would probably have never gone to the bank in the first place. She wouldn’t have met Jack either, but he’d be alive, at least. And then…

Dammit.

She was crying again.

Her Father was quick to notice it, and once Michael was tucked in, he sat on the edge of her bed, place a hand on her back to catch her attention. Jane tried to ignore it at first, but after a moment’s hesitation, she gave in and turned over. Her Father was looking down at her with a loving but clearly very concerned expression.

“Are you alright?” He asked, softly, “Do you want to talk about it?” Jane wasn’t sure what to say. Because what could be said? What would telling him do to get rid of the guilt? The blood? The memories? In the end, she shook her head.

“Ok, then. Just remember to talk to us, alright. Don’t try to bottle everything up when you’ve been through all this.” He leant down and gave her a quick hug, before finally leaving and turning off the lights.

“Goodnight.”

Jane thought about what he said.

But that was about it.

Over the next few weeks, Jane barely spoke about anything. She answered questions from her parents sometimes, but otherwise, nobody got to know about it all. She was glad to find that her Mother seemed to respect this decision, and didn’t tell George about her encounter with Jack to avoid him asking any uncomfortable questions. And of course, despite them all promising to fill Georgie in on what he missed, the story was far too much for a nine-year-old, so he only got half of it. And it was made out to be a lot more boring than it really was in an attempt to lose his interest and get him to stop asking questions about it. Michael always needed explanations for everything.

The result meant that Jane kept the exact extent of her grief a secret from her parents, to the point where she was left crying on her own on the balcony of her newly decorated bedroom about three months later.

Having her own room had been nice. It meant she didn’t have to go to bed at the same time as Michael since she wouldn’t be disturbing him if she came in later. She finally had space and privacy all to herself. And it meant that nobody could see her when she was upset and hiding from the rest of the family. Sitting out on the balcony always helped. Fresh air would do her the world of good, and it was always a nice distraction to listen to the general din of the city around her, even if it was much quieter in her little residential street.

The night was unusually warm that day, considering it was approaching November by now. Dead and dying leaves were blown from the trees of Cherry Tree Lane and were often skittering around her. But Jane preferred to sit outside, so accepted the fact that she’d be batting them away all the while. This particular evening, she had been upset about the day in general. She had just been listening to her radio, and the news reporter had been talking about the unbelievable cost of the damage done to the bank and how long it was all going to take to fix. They replayed an interview with Mr Dawes Jr about the whole situation and had talked about how the only two criminals that survived were now out of hospital after almost being killed from the bomb and falling rubble. They had mentioned their real names, but she only knew them by their codes, so she still felt a little clueless about the whole situation, but she suspected when the trials started, the witnesses would describe what they did, and she would be able to figure it out from that. They were also still talking about the boy who was stabbed on the roof, and how they never found out who it was. It seemed like everything involving the fateful day was still in chaos. All this had then gotten her into thinking about That Day and had gotten quite overwhelmed by it all. It had been a while since she’d last gotten so upset over it, so the whole thing had caught quite her off guard. But while she was sitting there in her own world, something would catch her even more off guard.

There was a whistle in the dark street below her as the lamplighter came to do the lamps. This was nothing new. But when the ladder was raised, she hadn’t been quite prepared to see who came up and light the lamp.

“JACK!” The boy’s eyes shot right to her, clearly not expecting anyone to call out to him. But when she saw his face, there was no doubting it was him. As soon as their eyes locked, their faces mirrored the exact same joyful grin, and Jane practically leapt to her feet as she dived to the edge of the balcony to speak to him.

Her heart soared and her eyes welled, so much so that all she could get out was,

“JACK! JACK! YOU’RE ALIVE! HOW!” As Jack got over the initial shock of seeing her there, his grin somehow grew impossibly wider as he giggled at her. And Jane couldn’t be any happier to hear it, or to see the playful glint in his eye, where it was always meant to be.

“I wasn’t close enough to get too badly hurt by the bomb. So, I ran away. I was in the cleaner’s staff room and tried to hide in one of the cupboards so I wouldn’t get crushed. But I found that escape tunnel we were looking for earlier. They were right. It held even when the ceiling came down.  
When I made it out, I tried looking for you. But you’d already gone. Did you find your Father?”

“Yes. We had to jump across holes in the floor to get to him.” She said, laughing at how insane the whole thing had been. It was so strange to have such a normal life and then one day, be doing something as crazy as that. They paused for a moment, neither quite knowing what to say. In her eleven years of life, Jane had never experienced anything quite like this. She’d never felt such a huge relief. She was completely overjoyed as she looked at him like some kind of mythical creature that she’s always wanted to see but should have never been possible. Her heart skipped and danced in her chest as her face was completely paralyzed into a grin so wide, it hurt, and her jaw open in absolute shock. It was as if the weight of the world had picked itself up and jumped off her shoulders, and for once, she could finally relax and be at ease.

“I’m so glad you’re ok. But don’t go blowing yourself up again. Because you might not think it, but I really missed you.” He pushed out an awkward laugh at that, unable to look her in the eye and finding that his face felt a little warm.

“Well, in that case, I have two people now.” Jane cocked her head at this, a little confused.

“Since I’ve been gone, I found somebody to miss me.” He gestured down to the street below, and when she looked, Jane could’ve cried at the sight of it. For Bert stood there waiting for Jack. When he noticed, he called up to them

“Evenin’ little miss.” He focussed on Jack and continued, “You alright up there Jackie Boy? We’ve got one more street left, yet.” Jane’s soared at the endearment.

Of course Bert would be the one. He’s the friendliest man in London. And the most talented. Jack would have a great time with him! She was almost jealous. She remembered clearly when she and Michael had run away from the Bank, and the way he spoke to them and looked after them all evening had been wonderful. Simply wonderful. And now Jack would get to experience it all, too. All the songs. All the dances. All his little quips. He’d be drawing in the street and playing a one-man band and skipping across the roofs of London all day long. And if he had a bad day. She knew Bert would be there for him as his shoulder to cry on. Yes, he’d have a grand time.

“Comin’” Jack called back down before turning back to Jane a final time.

“Well, I best be off then. But we’re going to be doing the lights here everyday for a while now. So, I’ll see you tomorrow. And maybe we can hang out again some time?”

“Yeah, sounds good.” He smiled again,

“I’ll see you then. G’night Jane.” And with that, he climbed back down his ladder, giving her a wave as he went.

“G’night Jack. See you tomorrow.”

Jane shed no more tears that night. She simply watched Jack leave with the biggest smile on her face. They lived. They survived. And Jack was actually better off than before. Who’d have thought? Her heart was still beating its embarrassingly fast rhythm and her fingers were still tingling. It was hard to believe she could be so excited just to see that somebody was still alive, and she had never been so eager to see anyone again. She was already counting down the hours till the next morning when he’d come back to dim the lights. Yes, this was great. She had him alive and coming by her house every day. She had her friend back. And she would make damn well sure that she was never going to lose him again.

Then, suddenly, out of the blue, she heard her brother in his room next door.

“MUUUUUM! I’ve been sick!”

Welp, looks like some things never change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so this one was great fun to write. I never expected it to be this long, but I’m glad it was, it made it so much easier to create all this chaos. I hope you’ve all had just as much fun reading it, and I should be back with my next fic next Saturday. Cheerio!


End file.
